


Void Crimson

by Closeted_Bookworm



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dare I say Dreamons, Demonic Possession, Dream Team focused, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss, Multi, Sapnap-centric (Video Blogging RPF), There is not enough Sapnap angst in this fandom, or platonic DreamNap fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28616199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Closeted_Bookworm/pseuds/Closeted_Bookworm
Summary: “What are you?” Dream whispered. Whatever this was, it certainly wasnotSapnap talking.“I’m not sure, actually,” the creature mused, “but whatever I am, it’s his fault for bothering me,” His neck popped back upright and he licked his lips, a wisp of what looked like red smoke escaping his mouth. The monster smirked at George, who was frozen in shock and fright, his eyes as big as marbles and mouth hanging slightly open. “Ya look like a fish, darling."Sapnap has been having memory issues lately. He tries to keep it together as long as he can, but things take a drastic turn for the worse and he, Dream, and George end up in a race to find a way to save Sapnap’s mind from a vengeful entity straight out of their nightmares before his memories are gone for good.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 141





	1. A Steady Drain

**Author's Note:**

> So, I’ve had this story in my Google Drive for a while, and I published it a few months back with a different fandom but didn’t get a ton of attention ( _Blank Space_ if anyone’s wondering). I’m really proud of it, so I've decided to rework it and publish it with the Dream Team!
> 
> Prewritten, so I’ll be able to keep an upload schedule for once. New chapter this Saturday, then one every Saturday after that :)

“That should do it,” Sapnap said under his breath, leaning back and surveying the freshly completed flowerbed. One of the goals he made when he moved into his new house was to plant a garden, and now, two months later, he had finally made good on that promise to himself. There were poppies, lavender, marigolds, and a young orange tree in the corner by the gate that practically glowed under the blinding Florida sun. 

The robust little sapling, which he’d put in the week before, was his favorite thing in the yard. The dense soil of his front yard had not made it easy on him, but in the end all the time spent digging the hole to plant the tree had been well worth it. It was doing well besides a few yellow leaves, and he hoped it would produce a large harvest as it matured. Today he had put in the last of the flowers and mulched the whole area. Wanting to take a picture of the finished garden, he reached into his pocket for his phone, but it wasn’t there. He rolled his eyes and walked back inside to look for it. There was no telling where he might have left it; he misplaced it on a regular basis. 

He’d been having trouble remembering all sorts of things lately, as a matter of fact. He didn’t know what was up with his brain, but all of a sudden he was forgetting things that he normally had no trouble remembering. Just little things, like where he’d left his keys or what he’d had for breakfast that morning, but it was happening so much that it was beginning to worry him. He’d even forgotten to feed Mars last night, which he hadn’t done once in the five years he’d had his dog. He would have just written it off as part of being human if it hadn’t been happening so often. 

He at last found his phone on his bedside table, though he certainly didn’t remember leaving it there. He could have sworn he’d pocketed the device when he got dressed that morning, and he hadn’t been in his bedroom since then. He wondered if he’d somehow gotten a concussion that had given him a memory issue. He did hit his head rather hard on the bedframe after a nightmare a couple days ago; maybe that was it? However, when he looked it up, he wasn’t showing any of the other symptoms. 

Spotty recall wasn’t his only problem, though. Nightmares like the one that had freaked him out the other night were a frequent occurrence. He had never had a problem with insomnia or night terrors in the past, but he kept jolting awake at ridiculous hours of the morning, tears streaking down his face and shivering violently. He couldn’t even remember what had woken him up. 

Come to think of it, maybe his newfound forgetfulness was a result of sleep deprivation. He sighed and resolved to get more rest that night. He wandered back into the kitchen, phone in hand, now trying to remember what he needed it for in the first place. He stopped by the window, staring out at the flowerbed he’d just planted, before smacking his own forehead at his own stupidity and ducking outside to take a picture.

* * *

That night, Sapnap startled awake at three in the morning. Three in the morning! He angrily dashed the tears from his eyes and reached to his left to turn on the light, only to have his fingers rake through empty air. He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, then turned over and turned on the lamp that had sat on the table to his _right_ for the entire time he’d owned it, even in his old house. He laid back down and groaned, resigned to laying awake for at least an hour. At least he didn’t have any plans for tomorrow. 

He was sick of being exhausted and distracted all the time, and his nerves were shot. What was the matter with him? He hadn’t hit his head or gone through a traumatizing event or seen anything even remotely frightening, and he couldn’t think of anything else that would cause something like this. It was not helping that his body always seemed to decide that the best way to recover from a nightmare was to stew over it for so long that the adrenaline had worked completely out of his system before giving him the chance to fall back asleep. It was a lucky night indeed that he managed to sleep for longer than a five-hour stretch. 

He flopped out of bed to turn off his alarm. He was going to do his absolute best to sleep until noon tomorrow. He didn’t have work, and his circadian rhythm could stand one day out of his schedule.

* * *

Sapnap woke up around nine the next morning; the only thing that made him get out of bed at all was the sound of his phone informing him he had a new text message. Yawning and stretching, he stared with bleary vision at his phone across the room as it buzzed insistently. He reluctantly rolled out of bed to see who could possibly be texting him on his day off. He smiled when the name Dream showed up on the screen. They had been best friends for almost ten years, since elementary school, and they owned a small auto repair shop together. 

_Hey, Sapnap, where are you? We were supposed to start fifteen minutes ago._

His eyes widened and he sprang into action, firing off a quick apology to Dream and rushing to get dressed, angrily berating himself. The two of them were restoring a run-down 1968 Pontiac GTO together, but he had completely forgotten they were supposed to start working on it _today._

He wrapped a piece of toast in a napkin, tugged on his jacket, and ran out the door. Ten seconds later, he ran back in, grabbed his keys, and was gone again.

* * *

After another week had passed, Sapnap felt like he was losing his mind. He was almost afraid to set anything down at this point, because he would almost certainly forget where he left it. He wrote everything down in an effort to stay on top of his schedule, but then he couldn’t even find the lists he made. He’d run his phone through the wash two days ago when he forgot to take it out of his sweatshirt pocket, so he couldn’t set reminders either. 

He was reaching his breaking point. He couldn’t take much more of this ridiculous scatterbrained nonsense. He’d taken to writing reminders on his arms and hands, the only things he couldn’t misplace. He hurriedly wrote his latest note, _paint shopping with Dream on Friday,_ on the underside of his left arm. It just had to last for three days. He hoped he would remember to rewrite it after his shower. He slapped a sticky note onto the bathroom mirror to remind himself to do it. 

He’d gone to the doctor the day before to confirm he didn’t have a concussion (he didn’t), and just to get his head in general looked at, but they sent him on his way with a clean bill of health and instructions to get more sleep. There was not much he could do on that front, however. His sleep pattern was nonexistent at this point, and depending on the night he could get anywhere from eight hours to none at all. The other day he’d been so tired that he tried to swipe his driver's license to pay at the gas station, then discovered that he had forgotten his credit card all together. It was infuriating.

* * *

Sapnap irritably concentrated on his black phone screen, silently willing it to turn on, but it stubbornly remained dead as a doornail. Dream had left his tool box at Sapnap’s house after working on the GTO, and now he couldn’t call him to come get it. How did his phone even get broken? He hadn’t dropped it. The last time he looked at it, it was a perfectly capable cellular device. As he stared daggers at the broken phone, his vision started fading and he hurriedly sat down on the floor and braced himself. 

Blinding pain stabbed through his head, as sharp and intense as a bullet. The phone fell out of his hands, cracking like a whip on tile. He sucked in shallow breaths through clenched teeth, wincing as the pain spiked again, coming and going in waves before ebbing away into a dull ache. He pulled himself into a kitchen chair and cradled his head in his hands, his eyesight gradually returning. 

He’d been getting these splitting headaches once or twice a day for two, no four, three days? He was no longer sure, but this was his third one today. After the first couple, he’d gone to the nearest urgent care facility, but they’d only sent him home with a promise to look for a potential cause and over-the-counter migraine medicine that did nothing against the pain. 

A loud knock echoed through the kitchen, causing him to whimper as his skull vehemently protested the loud noise. His head felt like it might explode, and his ears were ringing slightly. He slowly lifted himself out of the chair and walked to the door, his head buzzing strangely. His vision was kind of fuzzy and out of focus.

* * *

Dream waited apprehensively on the doorstep, twisting the strap of his motorcycle helmet and mentally chiding himself for leaving his tool kit at Sapnap’s house. He’d noticed his friend had seemed out of it that day and knew he’d been having trouble sleeping, so he’d resolved to leave him alone and let him take it easy. Yet here he was, back again after only an hour or two. After an uncomfortably long wait, Sapnap swung open the door, and he immediately regretted bothering him again. He was pale and peaked, and he looked like he’d just dragged himself out of bed.

“Sorry Sapnap, I think I left my tools here this morning, could I come in and look for them quick? I’m really sorry if I woke you…” he trailed off, noticing how dazed and confused his friend appeared. 

“Hey, are you okay? You’re not looking too great.”

Sapnap seemed to snap out of a trance, his usual silly grin popping back into existence. “Hey buddy, what brings you here?”

Dream blinked, the sudden shift in expression jarring. “Um… I just told you. My tools, remember?”

His smile seemed plastered to his cheeks. “Your tools? Oh, I didn’t see them. Come in, we’ll look for them. When did you leave them here?”

“Just this morning. I think I left them on the ground by the car, you really didn’t see them?”

When they rounded the corner and walked into the garage, he sighed in relief when he saw the box resting on the concrete, but a frown creased his face when he went to pick it up. 

“You just told me that you hadn’t seen it, but you left yourself a _note_ to give it back to me,” he accused, holding up a small yellow post-it with a distinctive cramped script scrawled across it. Sapnap’s eyes widened. 

“But I didn’t write that!” he exclaimed, his smile cracking at the edges, “I haven’t even been in the garage today.”

Worry for his friend flooded his mind, all sorts of alarm bells ringing in his brain. “Sapnap,” he said slowly, “we worked on the GTO for two hours this morning in your garage.”

His brow furrowed, the smile finally flaking away. “I… wha?” The buzzing in his head was growing louder, like an angry hornet was crashing around in his brain or another migraine was coming on, but he’d just had one… He could hear Dream’s concerned voice, but it was muffled, like cotton was stuffed in his ears. 

The hornet in his mind redoubled its efforts, and he whimpered as the pain sliced through his head and his vision started blacking out. It wanted out, it wanted to get _out_ of him, and he didn’t know how to let it out, it was getting worse, louder, harder, sharper, chipping away at him, it was destroying him, he just wanted it to stop… 

“Woah!” Dream yelled, lunging forward to catch Sapnap as his eyes rolled back into his head and he crumpled. He grunted as the dead weight hit him, easing both of them shakily to the floor. “Sapnap? Sapnap!” He grabbed his wrist, the air whooshing out of his lungs in relief when he felt a pulse beneath his fingers. It was strong, but erratic, like it was supercharged and trying to rip out of his arm. 

He glanced at Sapnap’s face and blanched; his eyes were still rolled back and his face was contorted into an expression of such utter terror that it was hard to look at. He didn’t know what to do. He reached for his phone, intending to call 911, but a hand grabbed his arm roughly, preventing him from reaching it. 

“No,” Sapnap growled in a guttural voice, “No hospital.” 

Dream stared with scared eyes at his friend, slowly retracting his hand. He was now muttering under his breath, his face still twisted in fear. As he watched, frozen, his muttering slowly quieted and his death grip on Dream’s arm gradually loosened, and his eyes closed. 

After a few moments, common sense kicked back in and he cautiously scooped up his friend and carried him inside to the couch. He sat down on the rug, anxious thoughts running through his head at a million miles a minute. As time ticked by, he grew progressively more worried as the other man still remained unconscious. Finally, after ten excruciatingly long minutes, he heard him groan faintly. Quickly looking up, he saw him sluggishly blinking and peering owlishly around himself. 

“Wha’happened?” he slurred. 

“Oh, thank goodness.” He punched him lightly on the arm. “Don’t you dare do that again!”

“Do what?” He sat up a little straighter. “Did I fall asleep on the couch?”

“You passed out. Your eyes rolled back into your head! What’s the matter? Are you okay? Sick?”

“I passed out? Wait, how did you even get into my house? Did I forget to lock the door again?”

“ _You_ let me in. Plus, I have a copy of the key.” Dream said. He sat back on his heels and thought for a moment about what Sapnap had said, desperately hoping the only problem was he was still half-asleep. Alarming possibilities swirled in his mind as he anxiously slotted clues into place. “Sapnap, can you tell me what you did this morning?”

Sapnap automatically opened his mouth, then furrowed his brow and closed it. 

“No…” he hesitantly said, “What… What did I do this morning? Why can’t I remember?” His voice was rising in pitch and the first sparks of panic were beginning to dance in his eyes as he racked his brains, trying desperately to remember something, anything, from that morning. 

“O-okay, then,” Dream stammered. “What about last week? Tell me about some of the customers we had at the shop.”

“Um, the shop… yeah, the shop. I was there for five days last week, right?”

“Six. You worked five days the week before that one.”

His face fell. “Oh. Well, there was an oil change, a windshield replacement, that dude Antfrost who came in wanting his muffler taken off-”

“That one was three weeks ago.”

Sapnap’s eyebrows arched upwards. “It feels a lot more recent than that. How long ago was it when we had to refer that one guy because he wrecked his roll cage? Two weeks?”

A worried feeling wriggled in Dream’s stomach. “That was a month and a half ago. I think I’m just going to call George and get him to pick us up in his car, and we’re going to take you to get your head looked at. I’ll come back for my motorcycle later, and I’ll feed Mars if you end up staying longer.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started dialing his boyfriend’s number. 

“Yeah… I think that’s a good idea. Who’s George?”

Dream’s head snapped back up. “I’ve been dating him for almost a year now. You just saw him last week. That’s not funny.”

“I can’t remember anyone named George.” His voice trembled. “Did… Did I forget him?”

“You’re being serious?”

Sapnap’s leg started bouncing up and down in distress. “I don’t know who that is! I didn’t even realize he existed, how will I even know if I’ve forgotten something else?” His breaths started coming faster and faster and caught in brief panic when Dream grabbed his shoulders, but his friend only pulled him into a tight hug. He relaxed the tiniest bit in the embrace as tears started leaking from the corners of his eyes. 

“Hey, calm down for me, okay? We’re going to find out what’s going on. Panicking isn’t going to help anything.”

He clutched his best friend tightly. They sat there for a while, Dream murmuring reassurances to him as he eventually calmed his breathing. When he finally pulled away, his eyes were red and puffy, but he was much calmer. 

“Can you show me a picture of George?” he softly requested. Dream unlocked his phone and held it up for him to see. A photo of his boyfriend’s beaming face smiled up from his home screen. He stared intensely at the photo, stubbornly struggling to pull a memory from some far corner of his mind. 

“I… recognize him, I think,” he finally said, “He looks familiar and I can hear his laugh, but it feels like he’s someone I met once and never talked to again.”

“Well, that’s something, at least,” Dream said, standing up and walking towards the hallway. “I’m going to call him now,” 

One brief phone call later, he walked back into the room. “He’s coming. I told him that you needed help, but I wasn’t sure how to tell him why over the phone,” he said a little sheepishly. 

“Okay.” 

Dream plopped down on the couch next to him, wrapping one arm comfortingly around his shoulders. 

“Why don't we try to figure out what you do remember?” he ventured. “Tell me about the most recent memory you have.”

“Last night,” he said immediately, “Or I’m pretty sure it was last night. I remember waking up from a nightmare again.”

“What was it about?”

“I can’t remember that, but I’ve been having them for a while. I never remember the dream that woke me.”

“I wonder if the same thing is causing both the nightmares and the amnesia,” he commented. “At least that’s pretty recent. What do you remember from yesterday?”

“I think I had a sandwich for lunch.”

“Do you remember what was on it?”

“It’s fuzzy… jam, I think? Maybe peanut butter?”

“But you don’t like peanuts.” 

“I don’t?” he exclaimed. Dream saw him starting to work himself up again and quickly pulled him into another hug. 

“Hey, focus on me, all right? Tell me what you know about me.”

“Pies,” Sapnap sputtered quickly, as if afraid these memories would wither and fade too. “I remember us making pies last Thanksgiving. I made the crust and you made the filling. I remember chicken too. You make really good fried chicken,” He took a deep breath. “Your favorite game is chess and you love cats.”

“Good. It’ll be okay, all right? We’re going to drive to the ER and get you checked out.”

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're off! Guess who shows up next chapter ;)
> 
> My power only grows with every comment left below. F̵͍̈E̶͝ͅę̴̽D̸̝̾ ̶͙̚m̶̦̌Ȩ̵̾. (please)


	2. Explaining the Gap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I couldn't wait, here it is six hours early. Enjoy :)

A couple hours had passed since the three of them had left Sapnap’s house. They had filled George in on the situation when he arrived, though it took some convincing on their part to reassure him it wasn’t some elaborate prank, and even more to talk him down from calling an ambulance and get him to simply drive the two of them to the hospital himself. 

They spent the majority of that afternoon in and out of various offices, and at this point Sapnap was exasperated and frightened. He wanted to scream. According to the doctors, there was nothing wrong with him. They couldn’t find _anything_ wrong with him. His brain function was infuriatingly perfect. But here he was, large chunks of his memory missing, and no one could figure out why. 

He stayed overnight at the hospital, but they had to release him the next afternoon.

“There’s no point in you staying any longer,” the doctor told him. “There’s nothing we can do for you right now. We’ll contact you if we find anything, but the best thing you can do at the moment is go home, take it easy, and let us know if anything additional develops.”

Sapnap called Dream from the hospital phone (he’d left him a note with his phone number), and he and George picked him up. 

“Any news?”

“Nothing. But they said they’d get back to me.”

They started the drive back to Dream’s house in silence. Sapnap’s stomach was twisted up into knots. There was always the chance the hospital would unravel his problem, but the neurologist- or was it the psychiatrist- he had spoken to was not optimistic. He pressed his forehead against the window, staring blankly at buildings flying past outside and trying his best to remember the route they were taking. 

Dream looked back over his shoulder at his friend; he was slumped despondently over, a lost and dazed expression on his face. He always hated seeing him upset, but he’d never seen him this stressed and worried before. He turned back around, letting his focus blur as he ruminated on what could possibly cause something like this. 

The only thing he could think of was that he had hazardous chemicals or something similar in his house. Or maybe under it? Sapnap had only been living in his new house for a month or two, maybe prolonged exposure to something in the area was to blame. That didn’t explain why the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with him, though. Maybe he had hit his head and just didn’t remember it. Again, though, the doctors probably would have found something. 

At some point during the half hour drive, Sapnap dozed off. His awkward position against the car window made him snore softly, and Dream chuckled. The poor guy probably desperately needed sleep. After a few minutes, however, he heard a soft, pained groan from the back seat. He turned and saw him shivering and murmuring, his face distorted by fear and eyes still shut tight. He quickly asked George to pull over, then he climbed into the back to sit next to him, gently shaking his shoulder. 

“Wake up, you’re having a nightmare,” Dream shook him harder. “Come on, buddy, you need to wake up!”

Sapnap gasped and his eyes shot open. Dream sighed in relief, but then Sapnap let out a yell that made his ears ring and George turn around with a surprised shout. Sapnap’s hand shot out, grabbing his friend’s wrist so tightly that Dream could feel the bones grinding painfully together. A small note of discomfort escaped his throat. He looked at his friend with hurt glinting in his eyes, but the sight of his face made the choice words of protest die in his throat. 

Sapnap’s lips were curled back and he was snickering savagely, the sound ragged and frightening. But the truly terrifying thing was his eyes. The irises, the sclerae, everything was pitch black. He looked unhinged and feral, and Dream was unable to look away, his stomach fluttering in panic. Sapnap twitched and shuddered, his muscles spasming, but his grip on Dream’s arm never wavered. His friend slowly and jerkily turned to face him, a creepy grin spreading across his face and his neck bent at an uncomfortable-looking angle. 

“I told ya before that a hospital would do no good,” he rasped. A devilish glint appeared in his eyes. “There are quite a lot of strong memories in your friend’s pretty head. He must be a very emotional person.”

“What are you?” Dream whispered. Whatever this was, it certainly was _not_ Sapnap talking. 

“I’m not sure, actually,” the creature mused, “but whatever I am, it’s his fault for bothering me,” His neck popped back upright and he licked his lips, a wisp of what looked like red smoke escaping his mouth. “This one has spent a lot of time with dogs. Those memories are always especially satisfying.”

“Get out of him!” Dream furiously exclaimed. The creature abruptly increased pressure on his wrist, and he gave a strangled yelp and pulled at the fingers crushing his arm. The entity’s soulless black eyes started flickering at the sound of his distress.

“Oh, bother, and now he’s fighting me,” it drawled, Dream struggling in its iron grip. “Your friend wants back out, I suppose. Well, he won’t be able to do that for much longer, thank goodness. So bothersome when they resist. Until we meet again,” it said, looking disdainfully at Dream’s fruitless attempts to free himself. He glowered defiantly back, tears of rage and pain burning in his eyes. The creature smirked at George, who was frozen in shock and fright, his eyes as big as marbles and mouth hanging slightly open. “Ya look like a fish, darling. His memories of you were delectable, though. Please keep making more for me. Ta-ta!”

Sapnap screamed, releasing Dream’s arm and flailing wildly. George flinched like a scared rabbit, slamming himself against the steering wheel to get as far away from him as possible. Dream slid limply off the seat and on to the floor, nursing his wrist and shivering silently as Sapnap convulsed. 

Then, as swiftly as the storm had descended, it was gone. His raw, wild shouts died, his body went slack on the seat, and his eyes closed as he resumed his gentle snoring like nothing happened. The car was still for a long time, George quivering in shock and Dream simply unable to process what had just happened. 

Dream was almost never truly terrified. He played video games and watched movies that scared him, sure, but this was a new level of fear, deep and instinctual and paralyzing. He was petrified. He had just witnessed a demon possess one of his closest friends, and he hadn’t been able to do _anything_. He had been _useless_ against whatever it was. He hated feeling helpless. He needed to find a way to fix this. Immediately. He would never forgive himself if he didn’t do everything in his power to save his best friend. 

His thoughts ran helter-skelter in a vicious cycle that always circled back to the painful fact that he must be able to help Sapnap, even though he knew in the back of his mind the situation was outside of what he could control. That quiet little thought, the admission that things were more than he could handle, scared him far more than telling himself he was to blame for his friend’s pain. 

After what seemed like an eternity, Dream was brought back from his reverie by a gentle tap on his shoulder from George. He stared uncomprehendingly at his boyfriend, his eyes long since dry but still glazed over. George’s eyes still held the last dregs of his terror, but he had collected himself. 

“Dream, please, please move,” he begged, “We need to wake him up. We have to see if he’s okay.”

His eyes focused and he roused himself from his spot on the car floor at last. He shakily climbed back onto the seat, hesitantly resting a hand on Sapnap’s shoulder. 

“Please wake up,” he quaveringly pleaded, “Please be okay after that.”

He stirred, groggily raising his head. Dream shrunk back as his arm came towards him, but he only yawned and stretched, his eyes fluttering open. He looked around in confusion. 

“Dream? Are we at your house yet? Why are we stopped?” he rapidly asked. Dream couldn’t say anything; he only yanked him into a tight hug. Sapnap was more confused than ever. “What’s wrong? You’re acting like I died or something,” he quipped. Dream’s only answer was to tighten his embrace. “Seriously, what’s going on?” He noticed George eyeing him warily. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend, or have you two just been watching me sleep?” 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked bluntly, finally letting go. 

“Getting in the car to go to your house. I was just asleep, what’s the matter?”

He took a deep breath, realizing that Sapnap didn’t remember his _own amnesia_. The couple carefully explained everything that had happened during the past thirty-six hours; Sapnap was skeptical at first, but the fingerprint-shaped red marks the monster had left on Dream’s wrist soon convinced him it was no joke. By the time they had finished, he was pale and shaking again. 

“So I have an angry spirit living inside me because I somehow disturbed it?” he whispered. “And it hurt you?” Dream nodded, not meeting his eyes. “What if it comes back? How do we stop it?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed quietly.

“Oh,” he said in a very small voice. He swallowed nervously. “What does it even want with me?”

“You said you couldn’t remember me at all when you woke up, right?” George interjected. He nodded. “Well, that thing said your memories of me were delectable. I think that it’s eating your memories.”

Dream jumped with realization. “Do you have a dog?” he abruptly asked. 

“No, I’ve never had a- wait, do I have a dog?”

“Yes, his name is Mars,” George said. 

“The thing said it liked dog memories in particular,” Dream offered. “Maybe you’re forgetting those faster than other things.”

Sapnap looked heartbroken. “I forgot my own dog… Maybe forever…”

“Not forever,” George said firmly. “We don’t know that yet.”

“I don’t think the doctors are going to have any answers for us, though,” Dream put in. “If this is supernatural, we might have to solve it ourselves.”

A large semi truck roared by outside, closer to their car than anyone was comfortable with. George turned back around in the driver's seat. “Let’s get off the shoulder first.”

* * *

The silence as they rode back to Dream’s house was a hundred times tenser than it had been before, but the rest of the drive was thankfully uneventful. When they arrived home, he could see his cat Patches sitting in the window watching as they got out of the car. Sapnap lit up. 

“Oh, you got a cat!” he said excitedly, but then his expression clouded. “I already knew that, didn’t I?”

Dream rested a hand on his shoulder as he unlocked the front door. “Yeah, but that’s okay. We _are_ going to fix this,” he said determinedly, mostly trying to convince himself. When he opened the door, Patches slipped out and wound herself in between his legs, meowing loudly and trying to trip him. Sapnap laughed out loud at her antics and wished fervently that he could remember other times she’d done the same thing. 

He was still chortling when they walked inside, Patches disappearing around the corner as she eagerly ran ahead of them. He wheezed, trying to stop the giggles, but as he gathered himself, little puffs of scarlet smoke started accompanying his gasps. He clapped a hand over his mouth. 

“Dream…” he apprehensively said, voice muffled. His friend turned to see what was wrong, his eyes widening as he caught sight of the crimson vapor now leaking from his nose in billowing curls. 

“Oh, crap,” he gulped, “the demon’s back!”

George, realizing what was going to happen an instant before it did, ran forward and caught him as his legs gave out. He was thankfully still conscious, though he was almost hyperventilating with panic as he leaned on him and struggled to stand. Dream rushed over to help, and the two of them supported him as they half walked, half dragged him to the couch. Tears sprang to Sapnap’s eyes. 

“I feel so… empty,” he choked out, the last wisp of smoke dissipating. “What on earth was that?”

“Some red smoke came out of your mouth while that thing was inside you before,” Dream told him. 

George mostly listened as he told the trembling man more details about the creature that had possessed him, occasionally adding his own thoughts. At some point during the discussion, Patches slunk back into the room, concerned by the shouting. The faithful pet both wanted to help them and wanted to avoid the conflict. She leaped onto the couch, settling beside his leg, curled into a ball. He started running his hands absentmindedly through her fur to calm her down. Sapnap stared at her in confusion. 

“Wait, when did you get a cat?” 

“You met her just a minute ago,” George said, realizing he must have forgotten her again. Sapnap sadly nodded in understanding. 

“I know we just got here, but I think we should go back to Sapnap’s house,” Dream eventually said after some discussion of what to do next. “Maybe we can figure out where this thing came from. You didn’t go anywhere besides my house and your place the past couple weeks, right?”

“I mean, the grocery store and our shop,” Sapnap replied. “But other than that, I don’t think I’ve gone anywhere.”

“Well I think we can rule out the grocery store,” George chuckled.

“And I haven’t been affected,” he said, “So your house it is.”

* * *

Arriving back at Sapnap’s house was hard for all three of them. When they got inside, Mars ran down the stairs to greet them, and Sapnap’s last thread of optimism broke as his dog’s claws clicked excitedly across the hardwood. He hugged Mars tightly and struggled to pull memories of soft fluff from the far reaches of his mind, stroking his ears for what felt like the first time as a tear trailed down his cheek. Dream placed a hand on his shoulder, unsure of what he could say that wouldn’t ring hollow.

“I feel like I’m falling apart inside,” Sapnap whispered brokenly, struggling to keep his voice from cracking. 

George knelt down and wrapped his arms around him. Dream couldn’t bring himself to do the same, too busy trying to force his own hot tears back. He had to stay strong for Sapnap. He had already lost it once before this morning, he wasn’t going to do it again. He couldn’t afford to let them see it was getting to him, too. He was the strong one, he had to be so they could find the solution as fast as possible. He would not cry. He wouldn’t. He was at war with himself, fighting against the salty emotion building behind his eyes. He would not let the tears win. George reached out and grabbed his hand, and he looked down to see him crying as well. 

George hated seeing Dream do this to himself. He knew he was trying to be the rock in the group, that he was denying himself the chance to be sad because he thought he had to handle it alone so they could push forward. So he pulled him down to join the hug, trying to tell him without words that it was okay to cry, that he could cry too, that they all were in pain and it was _okay_. 

Sapnap turned around and all three of them sat hugging like the world would break if they didn’t, eyes shut tight, supporting each other and trying to forget their problems for only an instant. He felt Dream’s tears drip silently onto his shoulder, and found a bit of solace in knowing that he had let down his wall. 

The moment broke with Sapnap’s surprised laugh. George opened his eyes and saw Mars licking his ear, trying in his own way to make him feel better. He giggled, and all at once the mood turned and they were all laughing and loving the togetherness of the moment, tears of pain turning to joy as the little terrier yipped enthusiastically and his owner kissed the top of his head. The dog dashed into the next room, barking at the back door to be let outside, and he ran after him. 

George grinned. Dream kissed his cheek, whispering a quiet “Thank you” into his ear, and he felt suddenly that it would be all right, no matter what came next. He pressed a quick kiss to his boyfriend’s lips and smiled at him, wiping the last evidence of his tears away. 

A loud thump echoed from the kitchen and they stood up, sharing looks of alarm and rushing in to see what had happened. Sapnap was lying in a heap on the kitchen floor, Mars jumping in concerned circles around him and yapping worriedly. They ran over, Dream turning him over onto his back and fanning away the red smoke expelled with his every exhale, holding his breath to ensure he wouldn’t inhale any of it. Sapnap was dead to the world but breathing normally, not in panicked huffs like earlier. George knelt down and carefully lifted one eyelid. He pulled his hand away quickly. 

“His eyes are black again,” he told Dream.

“His eyes are black? But that only happened when-”

Sapnap jerked up with a snarl, teeth viciously snapping shut inches from George’s chin. He screamed and Dream scrambled back with a yell. Not-Sapnap cackled, leaping to its feet with an unnatural, jolting jump. Its obsidian eyes were dancing with malicious mirth as it watched them edge backwards. 

“Told ya I’d be back,” he sniggered. “I just couldn’t resist scarin’ ya a little.”

Mars, snarling ferociously, lunged forward and latched onto its pant leg, shaking it like a rat. The demon looked down at him in annoyance, completely unmoved. George darted forward and pulled him off, fearful he would get hurt, running over to Dream with the outraged canine snug in his arms. The creature giggled. 

“Ya really think I’d kick the scrawny thing? You sure don’t listen, I told ya I love dogs,” It licked its lips, and he shuddered. The creature leaned lazily against the counter, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “I was just wonderin’ if you’d figured out why I’m here yet. It gets soooo boring up in his head.”

The couple was silent. Only Mars’ continued struggling betrayed the passing of time. The monster’s grin widened into a disconcerting leer. 

“Figures I would have to tell you myself. I would’ve thought it’d be rather obvious, though perhaps I overestimated you two. After all, wouldn’t either of you hate to have the roof ripped off your house? Though, maybe grave robbing would be a better analogy. Anyways, I’d have a peek outside if I were you.” 

The creature swept them an elegant bow and winked cheekily, then unleashed a horrible, primal scream and keeled over, red smoke billowing out of its mouth. Dream ran forward and just barely kept Sapnap from cracking his head against the tile. George rushed to help, Mars leaping from his arms and fleeing the room in fright. As he ran through the haze, he forgot to hold his breath and inhaled some of the red vapor still hanging in the air. 

The kitchen dropped away and he was looking up at a man he recognized as Sapnap’s dad. There was a toy truck in his hands, which looked chubby and boyish, and the whole scene was bathed in colored light from a Christmas tree to his right. With a sharp gasp, he was thrown back to the present. Pinching his nose to avoid breathing more of the smoke, he knelt down by Dream, who was looking at him with concern. 

“Are you okay? You spaced out there for a second,” he asked.

He was still trying to process what he’d seen. “I think… I think I saw one of his memories when I breathed in the red smoke,” he told Dream. “I saw his dad, and I was really little… What if the smoke is the memories he’s losing?”

“Should we catch it then? Maybe if he breathes it back in, the memory will come back. So much has already gotten away…” The smoke was disappearing before their eyes. George grabbed a glass that had been sitting on the counter and trapped some of the smoke beneath it, casting about for anything he could use to catch more as Dream snagged some inside a tupperware. But as he trapped more under bowls pulled from the cupboard, Dream called to him and pointed to the cup on the counter. 

The smoke trapped under it was still disappearing, and as they watched, it faded to nothing and the air around them cleared completely. They sat down heavily on the tile by their unconscious friend, and George leaned his head tiredly against his boyfriend, looking wearily down at Sapnap’s now peaceful face. 

“So much for that,” he said, defeated. He brushed the hair out of the man’s eyes and slowly lifted one of his eyelids again. His hazel eyes were back to normal. “I hope he didn’t forget today.” He gave a dry chuckle. “I don’t want to explain it all again.”

Dream kissed his head and took his hand gently. “You saw a memory from his childhood, right? Maybe all that smoke was his toddler years.”

“That would be awful. Not knowing where you grew up.” His grip on Dream’s hand tensed. “What if he forgets his parents? What if we have to tell them that their son can’t remember them?”

“We’re not going to let that happen,” Dream said firmly. “As soon as he wakes up we’re going outside to see what on earth that creature was going on about, and then we’re going to fix this.”

“Here, let me help you get him to the couch,” he said, shifting himself so he could support Sapnap’s legs, Dream wrapping his arms around his torso. Midway through moving him, he started stirring, and they nearly dropped him as he started lashing out, protesting in a weak voice. They quickly lowered him to the floor and he shook him gently. 

“Wake up, you’re safe, you’re home!”

His eyes burst open, flashing with the last traces of panic. His breathing was ragged and heavy. George pulled him into a hug and Dream wrapped his arms around them both, and after a few seconds they felt him hesitantly hug back. 

“I still remember you guys,” he said quietly, “I still remember that I forgot.”

“You didn’t forget,” George said encouragingly. “Your memories were stolen, not forgotten. Don’t blame yourself for what that creature is doing to you.”

“How can I not blame myself?” he cried, pulling free of the hug. “It said that it was my fault this was happening, and now I’ve dragged the two of you into this.”

“Sapnap,” Dream said staunchly, “this is _not_ your fault. There is no way you’d do this to yourself on purpose, and an accident means that it’s no one’s fault but the creature that decided he wanted some twisted sort of revenge for something you clearly didn’t mean to do.”

“And we don’t blame you at all for bringing us into this,” George added. “We’re your friends, practically family at this point. Do you think we’d rather just walk into your house one day and find you a complete amnesiac?”

“No,” he said almost inaudibly.

“So no more blaming yourself,” he said. “We’re going to find out how to help you. We’ll still remember you, even if you don’t remember us.”

He nodded, some of the fight coming back into his eyes. He leaned back on his hands and realized they all were sitting on the hardwood floor in a completely different spot than he remembered collapsing in. “Wait, what did I do while I was out? I didn’t hurt you guys, right?”

“No, you didn’t,” George said reassuringly. 

“But the creature did tell us to look outside to see what had ticked him off so royally,” Dream said. “He also said something about not liking having his roof torn off. You haven’t knocked down a shed or anything, have you?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a shed,” Sapnap said half-heartedly. “Though it’s possible, with my head being all messed up I might have forgotten it.”

The trio trekked outside, Mars reappearing from around the corner at the sound of the door opening to follow eagerly at their heels. He sniffed Sapnap’s sneakers suspiciously for a moment, verifying his owner was back to himself, then bounded off to do his own thing. They searched all over the backyard, peeking cautiously into a bin of miscellaneous scrap metal and poking through the sparse shrubbery, but nothing seemed to have been recently disturbed. 

“Maybe the front?” Sapnap suggested. Dream shrugged and opened the side gate, but was immediately blocked by the gnarled, twisted branches of the young orange tree. 

“Did you plant this recently?” Dream slowly asked, backing away gingerly as the branches curled towards them. 

The tree was terrifying to behold. The wood was dark and knotty, the leaves were a mottled mix of yellow and brown, and it was covered with small, shriveled black fruits that looked like two-hundred-year-old walnuts. Not to mention the fact it was reaching towards them like it was alive. 

“I must have,” he replied nervously, “if you guys don’t remember it either.”

He carefully stuck out a hand and gave the gate a push, and it swung creakily closed on the now thrashing branches of the corrupt tree. “I think that’s the root of our problem,” he said shakily.

George gave a nervous little laugh behind him. “You could say this _leaves_ us with no choice but to cut it down.”

Sapnap giggled. “I _wood_ not have believed it if I didn’t see it.”

Dream chuckled, the amusement infectious. “The pun wasn’t on purpose!” He grinned mischievously. “I’d say this was a _fruitful_ endeavor, though.”

They laughed happily together, ignoring the slight shudders from the gate as the tree lashed against it. It felt nice to laugh with carefree abandon, even if the last time they did it an evil entity had possessed one of them directly afterwards. 

“I think,” Dream said in between giggles, “that we need to do some more research. It just keeps getting crazier and crazier.”

“Yeah,” Sapnap chuckled, gathering himself with some difficulty. “Do you think the tree is the problem, or where I planted it?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say it's because you dug a giant hole to plant it in during the last couple of weeks,” George proposed. “You know all those horror stories of people disturbing the resting places of spirits and getting haunted?”

“But is it a ghost?” Dream wondered. “It didn’t seem like a person when it possessed you, dead or alive. It didn’t move or react like one, and it didn’t have a name.”

“Probably some other sort of spirit, then. I really hope I don’t literally have a demon inside me.”

“Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter the friendly neighborhood demon, lurking under the bushes...
> 
> Next chapter one week from now. :)
> 
> Comments/keysmashes/scathing criticisms are welcomed and encouraged, free admission offered to those who read the entire chapter!


	3. Sharing Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still Friday for another five minutes, but no way am I going to remember to post this tomorrow morning. Have at it!

They decided to spend the rest of the day on research, trying to dig up any reports of supernatural activity in the area. Sapnap worked on his desktop upstairs, Dream called dibs on the laptop downstairs, and George drifted back and forth between the two of them, offering input where he could and surfing ridiculous cryptid newsletters on his phone since there wasn’t another computer he could use. 

After an hour, the articles had turned up nothing, and he gave up trying to make himself feel more useful and wandered back outside to see what could be done about the tree. It might be as simple as cutting it down, he mused. He was standing just outside of the tree’s reach, studying it. He noticed that the black fruits seemed to have grown larger since they were last outside just an hour ago. Curious, he ran back inside and grabbed a large pair of grill tongs with a thick wooden handle. 

Inching carefully closer to the tree, he reached out as far as he could and tried to snag one of the fruits. After a few tries, he got one, but before he could pull it back in a twig wrapped itself around the tongs and tried to reel him in instead. He played tug-of-war with the tree for a full minute before managing to snap the surprisingly strong offshoot. 

Holding it at arm's length and still using the tongs, he gingerly carried the fruit back into the kitchen. He plopped it down onto a plate, arming himself with a pair of rubber kitchen gloves and a chef’s knife, then carefully took hold of the fruit and started to slice it open.

* * *

Sapnap was waist deep in a report about Native American burial grounds in the area when he heard a scream echo from the kitchen. He sprinted down the stairs two at a time, almost colliding with Dream on the landing as he ran in from the living room. He skidded around the corner into the kitchen just in time to see George slam a heavy wooden cutting board down onto a writhing mess of scarlet tentacles on a plate. The glass plate shattered under the impact, but the sound was muffled in his ears, and his vision was getting fuzzy for some reason. 

Dream pushed past him, running forward to see if his boyfriend was all right, and he fell heavily against the doorframe, clutching his head. He was vaguely aware of his best friend comforting George, but he wasn't really processing what was going on. His vision was filled with a crimson haze and darkening in his peripherals, and his muddled brain fired a weak warning signal, but he couldn’t seem to do much besides register a vague threat. It was difficult to piece coherent thoughts together. He saw his friends running towards him, yelling something, and then his vision went black. 

When he came to, everything ached and his head was pounding. He groaned and opened his eyes, greeted by a very scared Dream hovering over him. He looked to his left and saw George curled on the floor, clutching his right arm and gritting his teeth in pain. 

“What happened?” he mumbled. “Argh, my head hurts.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s my fault,” Dream stammered, looking terrified. “I had to, you were…” He made a choking noise. “It-it was hitting him.”

“I- what?” He pushed himself up. “Are you okay? What did I do? I just remember standing in the doorway and then it was fading and I-.” He buried his head in his hands. “I hurt you…”

Dream grabbed him and wrapped him in an almost crushing hug. “No you didn’t, it was that _thing_ , it’s my fault, I should’ve gotten there faster, found a better way, _I_ hurt _you_ -”

“Stop it!” 

George’s shout shocked them both into silence, still holding each other. He sat up, revealing the long red welts on his arm and the drying tear stains on his face, and Sapnap’s stomach churned with unease and regret. George crawled over to the two of them for a hug, but Sapnap pushed out of the embrace. 

“I shouldn’t be with you guys, you should go, I hurt you-”

“No.” George said forcefully. “It is _not your fault,_ ” He turned to Dream. “And you. You were protecting me, and Sapnap, and hitting that monster on the head did that. Now both of you get in here or I’m never letting you out of this hug.”

It felt grounding and safe to be held by another person, and it was warm and comfortable inside the group hug. None of them wanted to be the first to let go. 

After eyes had been dried and ice packs had been distributed to those who wanted them, they filled each other in on what each person had missed. George told them about cutting the fruit open and its sprouting tentacles, and the couple told Sapnap what happened when he blacked out. His eyes had turned black as the demon emerged, and it had pushed through the two of them and ran to the shattered plate, knocking George to the floor. 

It cradled the now unmoving mass of tentacles in its hands like it was its child. The monster then dropped it, grabbed the tongs that were still on the counter, and cracked George with them three or four times as he blocked his face with his arm and kicked at its legs. It had taken a swing at Dream as well, but he had grabbed the cutting board and thunked the creature on the head with it, dropping it like a stone. Sapnap was slightly relieved, and he tried to thank Dream for stopping him, but he wouldn’t let him, still feeling guilty about the small knot on his friend’s head. 

They were reluctant to retreat back to separate corners of the house, so they stayed in the kitchen and compiled their research so far, trying to pull some useful information from it. All three agreed that digging a hole to plant the orange tree is what made the entity mad, and that it was probably not a good idea to chop it down now, since the creature had apparently adopted it like a child, or at least a home base. Sapnap shared what he’d found about Native American tribes in the area, though it didn’t seem like his house was located on any sort of important tribal site. George’s findings were sitting in a pulpy heap in the trash can. 

It was Dream who really hit the jackpot. He’d found an article about a guy that lived in the area in 1976 and had been arrested for drug dealing. The police officers who searched his house reported finding the floor covered with pentagrams, lit candles, and books of summoning rituals. The man had gotten out of jail time on an insanity plea, as he wouldn’t stop rambling about demons while in court. There wasn’t an exact address, but it did describe the layout of the house in great detail and it matched his friend’s house exactly

“This house is pretty old, right?” he said. “I figured he might have lived here.”

“There’s certainly a good chance,” Sapnap replied. “It’d be foolish not to check it out.”

“What else is online about it?” asked George. 

“Not much, unfortunately. We could go down to the courthouse and check out the court records for October of that year, though,” he suggested. 

“Sounds like a good place to start,” Sapnap responded. “At least we have one lead. I don’t think we can go today, though. It’s getting kind of late, and I haven’t eaten since lunch.”

“Demonic possession doesn’t stunt the appetite, then?” George joked.

“Guess not,” He smiled. “Let’s go jog my memory on the contents of my fridge.”

“I’m going to shoot my neighbor Fundy a text to please feed Patches real quick, I’ll be right there,” Dream said. “Where’s Mars’s food?”

“I don’t know,” Sapnap answered good-naturedly, already rummaging through the fridge. “Try the pantry.”

“Nevermind, I found it,” he said, rooting through the cupboard under the sink. “I’ll leave a notice on the repair shop website that we won’t be open the next couple days. Can you get off work, George?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a couple sick days saved up. Just let me call my boss.”

Dinner was followed by an argument over who would take the bed since Sapnap didn’t have a guest room, which Dream and George finally won with the assertion that he now had significantly less memories of sleeping in his bed and clearly needed the chance to make some new ones. He maintained an exaggerated pout the entire time they were debating, only breaking it to admit sheepishly that he couldn’t remember where he kept the extra blankets. The two of them shooed him upstairs anyways, saying they were completely capable of finding the closet he kept them in themselves. Before he left, however, he wrapped them both in one last tight hug.

“Thank you,” he said, his earlier sadness showing a little in his tone. “Thank you for being here and helping and staying even when that thing attacked you. Just- thank you.”

“We would never leave you, Sapnap,” Dream said, his throat tightening slightly.

“We love you. You really are family,” George added. He squeezed him reassuringly. “Now go get some sleep.”

“I love you guys too. Good night.”

* * *

Dream was dozing fitfully on the couch, still too wound up and anxious to fall all the way asleep. The spring stabbing into his side wasn’t helping matters either. He was glad he had made Sapnap take the bed, though; he needed the sleep more than either of them did. He glanced over at George, fast asleep in the armchair in the corner. 

He envied his ability to fall asleep seemingly anywhere. He once saw him fall asleep while waiting for water to boil. He’d taken a picture of him; he was leaning back against the counter, head lolled back and mouth slightly open. It had been his lock screen for two months before his boyfriend finally made him change it. Dream, however, had trouble falling asleep anywhere but his bed, and whenever he managed to sleep in an unfamiliar place George would sarcastically congratulate him in the morning and gloat. He groaned and checked his watch; it was 2:37 in the morning. He was going to be absolutely exhausted tomorrow if he didn’t fall asleep soon.

He flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The house was almost perfectly quiet, the soft ticking of the clock hanging in the kitchen now the loudest thing in the house. The old floorboards above him were creaking slightly, the noises of the night building up an atmosphere that he didn’t quite have a name for. He wasn’t sure he liked it. It was too peaceful to be real after everything that had happened that day. 

His paranoid brain kept telling him he was missing a piece of the puzzle, something that they overlooked that they needed to be watching for. He turned back onto his side, shrugging off the suspense like a dirty blanket as he tried unsuccessfully to get comfortable on the ancient couch that seemed determined to impale him. It was probably nothing, he rationalized. Just him being overly suspicious. He sighed and closed his eyes, praying sleep would find him.

A savage scream shattered the silence, tearing through Dream like a wild animal, and it only took Dream one horrified instant to see what he’d missed.

 _Oh, crap, the nightmares!_ he thought. _He said he had nightmares!_

He all but tumbled off the couch and flew up the stairs, bursting into Sapnap’s bedroom. He broke into a coughing fit almost immediately. The air was thick with red smoke, and with every breath a memory flashed before his eyes. His heart broke when he realized he was watching Sapnap’s memories of restoring cars. There was the 1959 Chevy Impala they’d worked on for a friend last summer, the shiny little Volkswagen Beetle they’d painted bright pink for his little sister, the Pontiac GTO that was their current project, and several others, years of work disappearing in mere moments as smoke poured out of his mouth. 

Dream dropped to his knees, fighting to get his breath back and stop the tide of memories threatening to overwhelm him. The haze was less dense near the ground, so he just laid flat, gasping for air, his vision flickering back and forth between the present and the past. He regained his breath after a few seconds and pushed himself up onto his elbows, only to inhale another lungful of scarlet vapor.

He was thrown into a particularly vivid memory, and he was staring at Sapnap’s reflection in the tinted windshield of some beat-up junkie, his dad standing behind him. Greif washed over him as he realized he was staring at the first car Sapnap and his dad worked on together, the one that had brought the two of them together and inspired his passion for cars. 

He could feel their joy at the prospect of the project, so powerful and hopeful for the future that he couldn’t stand it, it was too much, Sapnap was _losing_ this, he was watching Sapnap’s memory and pride in what he had accomplished evaporate like puddles in the face of noon sunshine. He was hurled back to the present and now he could hear Sapnap wailing, a horrible heartbroken sound like his soul was being ripped out of him. He was thrashing like he wanted to strangle the bedsheets, twisting them into impossible knots around his tightly clenched fists. 

Dream took a deep breath and plugged his nose, running to the bed and desperately throwing himself onto it, bear-hugging the still-sleeping body and trying to calm his flailing limbs. Sapnap lashed out at him, one hand catching him across the face and knocking Dream’s hand away from his nose. He just wrapped both arms around him as tight as he could, giving up on covering his nose and crying out as the memories started to fly past. 

Sapnap’s struggling started to slow, his screams quieting to whimpers as the air started to clear around them. Smoke was no longer spilling from his mouth. Dream could feel him quivering in his arms, and he couldn’t stop the heaving sobs that tore out of him. He laid there the rest of the night, wide awake and mourning the brilliance that had just been lost, with his best friend shaking and crying like a wounded animal in his arms, still fast asleep.

* * *

When George ran in the next morning, calling for them with terror in his voice, Dream could only stare at him, shell-shocked and red-eyed, Sapnap now sleeping quietly but still trembling slightly. 

“What happened?” he questioned. “I woke up this morning and you were gone. My goodness, Dream, did you sleep at all? Why are you two shivering? Is he still _asleep_ and shaking like that?”

He could only muster up the energy for one word answers. “Nightmare.”

“Yours or his?”

“His.”

“Did you sleep?”

“No.”

“Did Sapnap wake up at all?”

“No.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed. Dream haltingly disentangled himself from Sapnap and sat up next him, leaning his head on George’s shoulder. Tears started to fall again, but he made no effort to stop them. He was too exhausted, physically and mentally. George rubbed his back, and he related the events of the previous night in a dead, monotone voice. His tears were mingling with Dream’s own by the time he finished.

“I don’t think he remembers any of his projects anymore,” he said. “Cars were his favorite thing in life. He just lost that, maybe forever.”

“Dream, you have to keep hoping. We’re so close to finding out why this is happening, and that’s halfway to fixing it.”

“He’s my closest friend. I’ve known him since third grade. It hurts so much.”

“I think you should go back to your house and sleep for a while. Sapnap and I will go to the courthouse and find those records, and you will go home and rest until you feel better.”

“What if he has another attack?” 

“Then I’ve watched a lot of Karate Kid.”

He gave a weak chuckle, too tired to offer much resistance. “All right. But please be careful. Both of you.”

George kissed him, and he could taste the salt on both of their lips. 

“We will. Now let’s wake him up.”

“Hang on, let me go first. I don’t want him to see how upset I am.”

“Dream, we can’t hide what happened last night.”

“But he’ll feel so guilty. You saw how he was after the demon hurt you yesterday.”

“I’m not hiding it. You can tell him or I will.”

He heaved a shuddering sigh, knowing that he was right. “Okay. Let me just go splash some water on my face first.”

Explaining the previous night to Sapnap was just as painful as Dream thought it would be. He let George do most of the talking, correcting him when needed. He got paler and paler as they told him about the memories he was now missing, but there were no more tears, just a hard, cold determination. 

“Well that means I have even more reason to find a solution to this,” he said bravely. “I could really name any car from the 1960’s just by looking at it?”

“Yeah.” He smiled fondly, staring off into space. He was barely awake at this point, his fatigue hitting full force now that he wasn’t wound up more tightly than a spring. George looked down at Dream’s head on his shoulder with a touch of concern.

“Okay, we’re getting you home.” he said. He grinned lazily.

“I feel like I have an adrenaline hangover,” he mumbled.

“I thought you didn’t drink,” Sapnap interjected.

“Yeah, but I have before,” he said. “Wait, you still remember that I don’t drink!”

“Oh!” Sapnap smiled in happy surprise. “I guess I do. It’s funny, I think I still remember quite a lot about you. I’m glad I still have clear memories of someone.”

“Shh, don’t jinx it.” He gave a tired half-smile. 

They decided to just drive Dream back to his own house so he could take care of Patches and sleep in his own bed. After wrestling Mars into his carrier so he wouldn’t be left alone, they piled back into the car and left. Sapnap was on high alert the entire drive; none of them were eager for a repeat of yesterday’s drama on the highway. 

Dream stumbled upstairs and fell into his bed as soon as they got home, asleep almost instantly. Sapnap guiltily watched his exhausted friend stagger off. 

“I feel awful that I kept him up all night.”

“Well, thanks for not going full ‘demonic possession’ on him,” George called over his shoulder, opening the back door to let Mars into the yard. He laughed nervously.

“Yeah, I guess it could have been worse, huh?”

“Please don’t beat yourself up over it. Dream did enough of that this morning for the both of you. You were asleep, you couldn’t help it.”

“I’ll do my best. Also, one thing before we go.”

“Hmm?”

“If I start to have an attack again, I don’t want you to hold back. I’d never forgive myself if I seriously hurt either of you.” His gaze was as serious as he could make it. 

“I’ll only promise that if you promise to stop being so self-sacrificing.”

“Fair enough.”

“Then I promise. Now let's get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> George and Sapnap shenanigans next chapter, no, there is no reason for you to worry. None. 
> 
> If 10 different people leave comments I'll release the next chapter Thursday night instead of Saturday :)


	4. Leaving Without Going

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's a day late, schoolwork's been a massive bother and this chapter needed more editing than the others. I hope it's worth the wait! We meet another familiar face this week ;)

Apparently, modernizing the record keeping system at the courthouse was a low priority task, because everything was still kept in paper files in the basement levels. The pink-haired secretary who led them down the stairs explained that everything was organized roughly chronologically. The farther from the door they walked, the older things would be. 

“If you get lost, I’m not comin’ in there to get you, so keep track of where you’re going,” he told them as he unlocked the door. “You’re not allowed to remove documents from the premises. You’ve got a way of takin’ pictures, yeah?”

George held up his phone in response. He nodded in approval.

“Good. You seem like mature, responsible adults, but if you wreck anythin’ management’ll have my head and I’ll have yours, got it? Last pair of kids who tried to mess with me got their behinds beat with a fencin’ foil. And I went easy on ‘em cause one’s my little brother.”

George chuckled in amusement, but it died awkwardly as he realized the secretary was serious. He swallowed and nodded under the intense stare. Sapnap smirked, imagining this surprisingly well-muscled man chasing down a pair of teenagers with a sword. 

“I’m leavin’ for a lunch break in a couple hours, if you’re not out by then just tell whoever’s at the desk to check you off when you leave. Pretty sure it’ll be Ranboo, look for the black and white hair. Cruella de Ville style, can’t miss him.”

“We shouldn’t be too long,” George said, promising to follow the instructions. The man opened the door and let them into the massive space, flipping on the light switch before he left. A few dim bulbs flickered on overhead, barely making any dent in the darkness. 

The archives under the courthouse were not designed to be pleasant. Sapnap looked down the long dark aisles with more than a little trepidation. The space was cramped and dingy and the lights were kept low to preserve the fragile paper records, which were stored in towering file cabinets with faded labels designating the year they were from. He was pretty sure some of them dated back to the 1800’s. Why they hadn’t been digitized, he had no idea. 

The densely packed containers formed corridors that twisted and turned with no apparent organization. Sapnap was glad the records they were looking for were from the 1970’s, which hopefully shouldn’t be too far from the front. He was nervous about plumbing the depths of this shadowy maze. George walked resolutely past him, choosing a drawer at random and starting to check dates. 

“This is all from the last year or so. We’re going to be quite a bit farther back,” he informed his friend. 

“Let’s get started then,” Sapnap said resignedly.

“Should we split up?”

“Nah, I have zero sense of direction. I’m not sure I would be able to get out of here on my own.”

“Maybe we should have brought some bread crumbs to leave a trail.”

“Or some safety flares so search and rescue can find us.”

They methodically worked their way down the claustrophobic passages, periodically checking the labels as they went. It got even darker as they lost sight of the light from the entrance, eventually prompting George to pull out his phone and turn on the flashlight. He felt around in his pockets for his own phone, but his friend reminded him that his had broken a couple days ago. 

“Who would have thought all of this was under the courthouse,” George marveled, amazed at the sheer volume of the space they were walking through. 

“I wish they’d made lighting a bigger priority. It’s hard to see much of anything. How can they stand working down here?” Sapnap griped.

“I don’t think anyone comes down here much. There’s dust all over everything.”

“You think they’d at least send a custodian down every once in a while. Hold on, what was that date?” He paused in front of the cabinet to their left. “May 1979. We’re close. Just a little farther…”

He strode to a cabinet ten or eleven away from them. “Can I see the light?” he called.

“Here.” George brought him the phone. 

“1978. Not quite.” They followed the line of containers until they found 1976. 

“October, October… Here they are,” George muttered, combing through the drawers. “Start looking through these.” He handed a sheaf of papers to Sapnap, keeping half for himself and sitting cross-legged down on the cold concrete. His friend sat down next to him in the tiny circle of light, coughing at the dust they stirred up. They took turns holding up the phone so they could see. 

The majority of the papers were case files, so for the most part all they had to do was look at the list of charges and put it aside. Occasionally one of them would find a case that looked promising, but it never seemed to be the one they were looking for. George wished the article Dream had found had given a name or a more exact date. Who knew there were this many cases tried in one month in Florida? 

After about a quarter of an hour of searching, during which they’d gone through about two drawers of manila folders and yellowing paper, Sapnap tossed his most recent file to the side and groaned. He had a small headache coming on. George punched his arm lightly.

“Come on, we can’t give up yet! There’s only one drawer left.”

“I didn’t think this many petty crimes could be committed in an entire year, let alone a month. My head hurts from so much illegalness.” He rubbed his eyes, which were dry from peering at tiny, compact lines of text. His headache seemed to be worsening, which was annoying. He thought that it would start to fade now that he’d stopped staring at papers. “Have you had any luck?”

“Not with this stack. I’m just about finished with it.”

“I’m only going to do one more pile. I don’t think I can handle any more than that.” He got up and opened the final drawer marked with “October 1976.” He moved to grab the first chunk, then paused. What if this guy had actually been tried on _Halloween?_ This whole affair was cursed, so might as well pick the spookiest date on the calendar. He grabbed the very last file crammed into the back of the drawer and plunked himself back down. The first thing he saw in the folder was a grainy photograph of a pentagram hand-painted on a dark wood floor. “I think I found it,” he grumbled. George looked at the file over his shoulder. 

“Of _course_ it was Halloween,” he sighed.

Sapnap exhaled in exasperation... and promptly blew a considerable cloud of crimson smoke into the air. He looked at George, alarm and fear evident in his eyes. Of all the times for the monster to make an appearance, it had to pick now. A smoky cough rasped out of him as his mind raced. He had to get away from his friend. The last time the creature had seen him, it had tried to brain him with his kitchen’s equivalent of a baseball bat. 

He leapt to his feet and sprinted away down the aisle, ignoring George’s cries for him to stop and the tickling in his throat and lungs telling him running was not a good idea. He came to an intersection and chose a path at random, praying the endless maze of file cabinets would help him lose his pursuer. He managed to keep running for a good five minutes before gasping to a halt somewhere around 1880. He fell to his knees, each wheeze punctuated by a puff of red smoke. His head was screaming in pain and his vision was starting to fade to black. He collapsed in a swirl of dust and everything went dark.

* * *

George wasn’t sure if he was more angry or worried about Sapnap at this point. He had been wandering around for at least a half hour, calling his name every minute or so and clutching the precious case file to his chest nervously. His phone’s battery was trickling lower and lower, dropping into the thirty percent range, but there was no way he could find him in the dark if he turned it off. 

He walked down countless corridors, peeking his head around corners cautiously and keeping his ears carefully attuned to any sound that might signal Sapnap was nearby. He had given up on him answering back some time ago and now searched silently except for the echo of his footsteps, unsure whether the demon was possessing his friend or not. It had never controlled him for longer than a few minutes before, but he didn’t discount the possibility. He was getting more and more worried with every minute that passed. But as he rounded the next corner, Sapnap barreled into him, slamming the breath out of his body and knocking him to the floor. The phone light flickered out when it hit the concrete, plunging them both into darkness.

“What on earth? Why would you-”

“Crap, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you coming, but we gotta go, now!”

“What! Why?” he exclaimed, but Sapnap was already scooping up his phone and grabbing his wrist, pulling him off into the dark. It was all he could do to sprint after him without tripping over his own feet. He had no idea how they hadn’t run headfirst into anything, but Sapnap seemed to know where he was going, making turn after turn and muttering directions under his breath. 

Eventually his eyes caught the faint light of the entrance ahead. George shook off his friend’s grip and tumbled out of the door, glorying in the fluorescent lights of the hallway. He slumped against the wall and slid to the floor, trying to calm his wildly beating heart. Thankfully he had kept a hold of the manila file with the case information during their flight. 

“Are you going to tell me why we were running now?” he asked, looking over at Sapnap. He was still silently standing in the shadows just beyond the door to the archives. He suddenly became aware that his friend wasn’t even breathing hard. A chill ran down his spine. Something was very wrong. 

“You never would have found your way out of there if it weren’t for me.” Sapnap purred, and George’s stomach sunk into his shoes at the menacing tone. “You would have wasted away in the dark, lost and scared. Unable to find a conclusion to the endless rows of history stretching before you, desperately searching for the exit, confined to the blackness for eternity. All batteries die, and all humans have a breaking point. I think you would have gone positively, delightfully, batty. ” He stepped out of the shadows. “Too bad I enjoy this drama far too much to let it end, that would have been lovely to see.”

George jumped back up, gaze caught on his eyes. No, not his, _it’s_ eyes. They were full of dark eddies that made them look deeper than the ocean, made even more terrifying by the ominous backdrop of the dark shelves behind them. His instincts were furiously yelling at him to run, to get away, that this was a threat, but his legs screamed that they couldn’t go any further and his brain insisted that he couldn’t abandon Sapnap, even when he was like this. He remained frozen in the hallway. It gave a dark, haunting chuckle and blew a scarlet smoke ring into his face. 

“I picked a name, deary,” it told him patronizingly. “Lacuna, ‘a gap.’ Beea-utiful, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking about it since your insolent boyfriend asked me about my name, and I rather like the sound of it. Simple, easy to _remember_ ,” it laughed meanly, “and rather fitting, considering what I’m doing to your friend, hmm?”

Something in him broke. He lunged forwards, aiming to ram right into its stomach. It sidestepped him easily, shoving him to the floor as he charged past. The air whooshed out of his lungs as it planted a foot firmly on his back. 

“I could have him forget _everything_ , you know,” it hissed in his ear. “He would be an infant. Knowing nothing about the world or even how to talk.” 

George’s breath caught in his throat. 

“It would be so easy,” it crooned. “Just a little extra legwork, break down a few mental walls. I could leave him _mad_.” It giggled crazily. Abruptly the weight on his back vanished, and he scrambled away from the cackling demon. 

“All I really want is the memories, though. All of his delicious, emotion-riddled memories. I’ve saved the best for last.”

“W-what do you mean?”

“He doesn’t have much left at this point. There’s a certain batch of memories I’ve left alone thus far.” Blank licked its lips and grinned. “After all, I simply had to savor watching a man forget his own best friend.” 

It covered the space between them in a single inhuman leap, leaning in very close to him. Those black whirlpools were only inches from his own terrified brown eyes. His mouth got very dry. “It’s going to be _beautiful._ ” It rocked back on the balls of its feet and tapped his nose with a chuckle. “And it’s coming soon. Better hurry back.”

Sapnap sagged against him, and he wrapped his arms against his friend, trying to keep them both from sliding to the floor. There was no screaming this time as the monster left him, only a trickle of crimson smoke and a dead silence that was somehow much worse.

* * *

When he woke up, George had already taken pictures of the entire file (his phone thankfully still worked, though the screen was cracked) and was anxious to go. He ignored Sapnap’s frantic questions, promising to explain in the car and gathering up the spread of papers. He glanced back into the shadows of the archive and shivered, placing the file inside the door and hoping the secretary would forgive him for not reshelving it. 

Only after they’d gotten back on the road did he give a scattered account of what had happened. However, he left out how the creature had pushed him down, and how it threatened to drive his victim mad. When Sapnap heard how his memories of Dream could be the next to go, he swallowed hard and ignored the tickling heat gathering in the back of his throat. 

“It’s true,” he dismally confirmed. “About my memory. I think Dream’s all I have left. I can’t… I don’t… I don’t want to forget.”

George was blinking tears from his eyes. “You won’t,” he said desperately. “We are going to fix this before that happens.”

“But what then? What about after? Will I get my old memories back? What if I’m just stuck with almost total amnesia my entire life?”

“Then… then we make new memories,” he said softly. “We stay by you and we fill you up with new memories.”

“It won’t be the same.”

“No. But we’re going to do our best to make it pretty darn close.”

Sapnap was silent for a while. At last he turned and gave him an awkward one-armed hug from the passenger’s seat. “Thank you.”

George didn’t respond, not trusting his voice not to crack, but he knew the sentiment was received.

* * *

Dream was still asleep when they got home. Sapnap got the phone and desktop synced so they could see the photos in more detail, and George ran upstairs to wake his boyfriend up. He filled him in on everything that had happened at the library, again leaving out the assault. Dream was already stressed enough from hearing the story of the most recent possession. He didn’t need one more thing to worry about, and George knew he’d blame himself for not being there to protect him. 

The case file was fairly large, so there was a lot of information to poke through. The house in the case was indeed Sapnap’s; at least one mystery had been solved. The street name hadn’t even changed. Someone during the course of the court proceedings had photographed some of the books found in the house when the man was arrested, so they decided to look through those first. If this man really had summoned a demon, the books would surely have the way to get rid of said demon. 

The trio pored over the grainy, thirty year-old photos, trying to glean as much information as they could. The books were hand-written and were full of carefully drawn diagrams, though the writing on half of the pages was smudged to the point where it was illegible. What they could read was disturbing, to say the least. The pages mostly contained graphically detailed instructions for curses and their bizarre effects on people and objects, with the occasional potion recipe. It was like someone had crossed a chemistry textbook with a witch’s grimoire. They quickly found the pages on demon summoning, but they couldn't find anything on how to banish one. 

“Well, it looks like we really are dealing with an honest-to-goodness demon. And this guy was apparently so dim-witted that he didn’t even find a way to get rid of it before he summoned it. According to this, he tried to bury it in the garden and expected it to just go away,” Dream groaned, leaning back in his chair. He was wide awake, even though he’d only gotten about two hours of sleep, and George suspected he was getting a second-hand adrenaline spike from what happened at the archives. 

“There’s a note on the bottom of this page that says if additional help is needed we should go to a medium,” he pointed out.

“Mediums aren’t real.”

“Well neither are demons.”

“Point taken. But how are we going to find a legitimate medium? I’m sure most of the ones around here are just crooks.”

“Probably just trial and error,” Sapnap lamented. “There’s not much else we can do.”

“What if none of them are real?”

“Then we’re back to square one. We at least have to try. We don’t have any other leads, and the rest of these pages don’t seem to have anything useful.”

Dream conceded the point, and they set about compiling a list of all the psychics and mediums they could find online within a drivable distance. There was an absurdly large amount, advertising themselves as everything from faith healers to exorcists to clairvoyants. He sighed at the list of more than 20 names, knowing most if not all of them were probably scams. This was going to take a while. He brought the pets over to Fundy’s house to stay for a day or so while they searched, and then they were off. 

The first seven were a complete bust. It was blatantly obvious before they even made an appointment that they were nothing more than talk and tom-foolery, so they said polite goodbyes and hurried off to the next place. They actually booked a reading at number eight, which had seemed slightly more promising, but the medium herself did nothing but tell them vague nonsense. 

They continued going down the list after a brief lunch stop, but nine through sixteen were a similar waste of time. Dream was getting seriously worried. It was getting to be late in the evening, with all the driving they had done, and they were no closer to getting help. They arrived at number seventeen to see a large red “CLOSED” sign hanging from the door. The hours posted on the window said they wouldn’t open until 8 the next morning. They reluctantly turned around and headed for home, resolving to continue tomorrow.

It was nearly eleven by the time they got back, and they were all emotionally drained and physically exhausted. Dream sincerely hoped they were doing the right thing by trying to find a medium. It just seemed so far-fetched that any of the people they had met that day could actually provide psychic help. At least a few probably needed psychiatric help. But they had to keep going. They had nothing else to go on. 

He pulled a granola bar out of the pantry, his stomach loudly reminding him that none of them had eaten since that afternoon. He grabbed a few more, tossing two each to Sapnap and George, before plunking himself down on the couch. 

“It’s about all we’ve got at the moment, I’m afraid. Unless you guys feel like cooking something.”

“No thanks. I’m too tired to care anyways.” Sapnap said, walking over to join him. He tried to sit down next to him, but he missed the end of the couch and ended bruising his tailbone on the hardwood instead. After the ridiculous day they’d had, all he could do was laugh. It just seemed so trivial, and there was something singularly comical about falling on his butt doing something as simple as trying to sit down.

“Tell me honestly. How often do I do that?”

Dream was trying and failing to stifle his own giggles. “Pretty often.” He stood up and performed a ridiculous parody of the moment, ending with a highly dramatized death that left him sprawled across Sapnap’s crossed legs. He held it for as long as he could without laughing, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and eyes crossed, but neither could manage for more than thirty seconds before dissolving into boyish giggles. 

Sapnap shoved him unceremoniously off his lap and got up to sit down properly, but missed the couch again, his legs folding under him. He could hear Dream laughing again, sure it was his attempt to add another layer to the hilarity of the moment, but it hadn’t been on purpose. He tried to stand again, but his legs didn’t seem to be working properly.

“I’m not joking anymore. I-I can’t get up!”

Dream stopped laughing immediately. “What?” 

He tried pulling himself up again, but his muscles weren’t cooperating. He leaned back on his hands, trembling, as George ran over from the kitchen. 

“M-my legs keep giving out.”

“Are you feeling okay otherwise?”

“My vision’s not fading like when it possessed me, and my head’s fine.”

“And no red- oh crap.” As he spoke, red vapor slowly started leaking from Sapnap’s nose.

“No, no, no!” He was panicking. He had only one thing left for the monster to take, and it was the one thing he couldn’t stand losing right now. 

Dream realized it too, and he seized him in a tight hug. He was uncomfortably reminded of them in this same position just a day ago, hugging tightly on the ground, the sander forgotten on the counter above them. He caught a whiff of the red smoke, and saw the two of them riding bikes together. He started to tear up as more memories started flashing past. 

George hovered behind them, torn between breaking this moment between best friends and his desire to help. He knew he was not who Sapnap needed right now. He retreated to the kitchen after he accidentally inhaled and saw a glimpse of the pair of them making up after a fight. This was personal.

“Focus on me. Please. Tell me what you remember about me,” Dream begged. A memory of a movie night together swam in front of his eyes.

“I still remember the pies. The filling was apple. We loved playing video games together on the weekends.”

“What else?” He could see them racing sailboats as kids. 

“We took piano lessons together.”

“What else?” They were frosting cupcakes, eating more frosting than they were using.

“Your favorite color is green.”

“W-what else?” He was comforting the other as he cried over a lost pet. The red smoke was coming faster, both of their voices becoming more desperate.

“I don’t know-”

“Think harder!” A shared Christmas morning disappeared into thin air.

“I helped you cheat on a test in fourth grade.”

“Keep thinking!” A night of giggles and horror stories in a two-person tent, fading to nothing.

“There isn’t any more, Dream! T-they’re going…”

“No, no, there must be something. I-I can’t lose this, you mean too much to me, dig deeper-”

“We first met on a playground!” The memory glowed in his mind like a tiny star, fragile and faint, but Sapnap dragged it into the light, tried desperately to hold it there, to capture the memory in a little glass jar because he knew that there weren’t any more, he couldn’t find more, they were all gone, oh please no, all gone… 

“Don’t let it die, Sapnap!” Dream was crying into his shoulder. 

“You pushed me on the swings…” He was blinded by his own tears. He had to keep talking or it would be torn away from him, the last scrap of an almost lifelong bond between them, Dream was his best friend, he couldn’t stand it, it was too much, he might break. “You pushed me and then I pushed you, we took turns…”

“Please keep going…”

“We were on the swings at… at… I don’t know where we were!”

“Fight it, hold onto it! Please, no…”

“You pushed me… on the swings… we were on… Dream, it’s going…”

They clung to each other, and suddenly Dream could see it, that first wonderful day in the park, and he knew that he saw it because the other did not, because it had joined the haze of joyful moments surrounding them, floating gently away like wispy clouds in the face of a summer breeze. His heart shattered, a useless barrier against the tsunami of anguish that crashed over the both of them. 

Sapnap felt empty. Horribly, awfully, dreadfully, empty. His core had been hacked out of him, his soul rent in two, and he could never be whole again. He clutched the man in front of him tightly, knowing that this person had gone through so much to help him, but he couldn’t even remember why. He didn’t know how they had built this connection. It crushed him. He knew he loved Dream like a brother, but everything was gone and the past was empty and things could never be right again. 

They sobbed together, mourning the memories glistening in the crimson fog surrounding them, mourning a friendship that now rested on one leg, mourning a broken promise that it would be all right. How could it be all right. He was like a ghost ship, left with only others’ memories of its past life and the knowledge of what was happening now. They were still together, but one of them was lost. Drifting. It felt like no amount of searching could ever bring him back. He was utterly broken. When the silent darkness started encroaching on his vision, he welcomed it. 

Dream felt Sapnap drop his half of the hug and fall slack in his arms, but he wouldn’t let go. If he held on, he wouldn’t have to look at a Sapnap who wouldn’t remember him, who knew nothing about his family, who was Sapnap but missing the things that had made him into Sapnap. So he hugged, eyes squeezed shut, and he cried. He was vaguely aware that George had left them alone, which he was grateful for. His best friend stiffened in his embrace, but he was in no state to deal with a new trial. Any more trauma might push him over the brink. He didn’t let go. 

“Oooh, that was _wonderful_.” He still wouldn’t look up, scared of what he would see. “You, my friend, are a sentimental fool. He’s much better off without memories of an oaf like you. Now kindly get your mitts off me.” He didn’t move. His tears were slowing, freezing and hardening into anger. “I said, get off of me. I have no need for hugs.” Lacuna’s voice was full of disdain. But Dream wasn’t ready to let go. 

With a brutal, violent swing, it threw him across the room, breaking his grip easily. He crashed into the kitchen table, falling to the floor. He lay curled into the fetal position, pain searing through his ribs and fire raging in his heart. The shattered pieces made perfect kindling. 

He slowly got to his feet, glaring over at the creature that had taken over his best friend’s body. He couldn’t think, emotions roiling in his mind like a tempest. He stormed back over to the monster, unsure what he was planning on doing but knowing that he had to hurt the thing that had done this to them. The creature giggled madly. 

“You wouldn’t hit your frie-”

Dream socked it squarely in the jaw. 

Caught completely by surprise, it stumbled backwards with an unearthly shriek.

“You _dare-_ ”

A thunk echoed through the room and it dropped flat. George stood shaking in the doorway, a wooden stool held at the ready in case it got back up. 

“I heard the crash, are you okay?”

“No.” he whispered. His anger flickered out as quickly as it had ignited, and the heartache came rushing back. “No, nothing is okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> la·cu·na  
> an unfilled space or interval; a gap.
> 
> A word I never knew I needed in my life, I really like it even if I'll probably never have the occasion to use it again. 
> 
> the comments, they fEeD mE, I wAnT


	5. Authenticity in Question

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, here's the chapter a day early! Surprise!

Breakfast the next morning was a depressing affair. Over toast and cereal, George explained the previous night to Sapnap, since he had only awoken long enough the night before to drowsily ask what happened before falling asleep right on the living room floor. Dream mostly sat silent, only talking when his boyfriend prompted him to. Sapnap barely said two words throughout the whole meal. 

George found himself nervously chattering about nothing to fill the silence, but any attempt at conversation fell flat in the overwhelming atmosphere of bleakness and he stopped trying. It was like all the energy had drained out of the room. None of them could eat much. After 10 minutes of awkward picking at increasingly soggy cereal, he agitatedly pushed back his chair and started getting ready to leave, the other two following suit. He stopped them at the door.

“This is horrible. There is nothing I can say to that, and I don’t understand your pain because I was never as close as you two were, but I do know that this hurts. So much. So incredibly much because it feels like you’ve lost each other, but you’re both still here. But we still have to hope!” he pleaded. “The memories might not be gone. We can still win. If we stall out here, we’re stuck in the pain and we can never move past it. We have to keep going.”

“Okay,” Dream whispered. Sapnap leaned a head on his shoulder, a few mute tears trailing down his cheeks. He nodded, but said nothing. 

“Then let’s go find a medium.”

* * *

Their luck didn’t seem to have changed much from the previous day. Psychics seventeen through twenty-one were no better than the first sixteen. The more crooks and crack-pots they visited, the more demoralizing each failure became. The morning dragged on, and their list of addresses was dwindling. It felt like they’d driven across the entire state at this point. 

Address number twenty-two was a run-down little place in a not-so-great part of town, but the walls of the shop were painted a cheery yellow and the outward shabbiness seemed to drop away as they stepped inside. The lobby was decorated lavishly, like something out of Arabian Nights, and a sparkling hummingbird wind chime jangled as they entered, emerald wings catching the sunlight as it twirled and sending glimmering patterns flashing across the walls. Dream felt his spirits lift the tiniest bit at the sheer positivity radiating from this shop. 

A pale, well-mannered man greeted them from behind a brilliantly patterned counter, dressed, surprisingly, in a no-nonsense ensemble including a stylish maroon vest and comfortable black slacks. A gold pocket watch chain hung out of one pocket, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses was perched on his nose. He looked like an out-of-place time traveler who’d been dropped in the middle of a storybook. 

“Hello, and welcome to Skeppy’s Spectral Spectacular,” he said with a smile, the type that leaves one certain that it’s completely genuine. “Will you be booking a reading or a séance?”

“Neither, actually,” he said. “We have a rather serious problem of the supernatural nature we were hoping you could help us with?”

“Well, I won’t be much help, but if you’d like an appointment with Skeppy I can definitely arrange it.”

“I’ve got a good feeling about this one. Let’s do it,” Sapnap whispered to Dream. He had hardly uttered a word the whole day, but now he had a little color back in his cheeks and a sparkle in his eye. 

“Is he available right now?”

“I don’t think he has anyone at the moment. Hang on, be back in a jiffy.” He winked and disappeared through an arched doorway patterned with exotic, foreign symbols.

“This place feels… good,” Dream said. His friends nodded in agreement. The place absolutely reeked of happiness. It was unexplainable. Standing in this room made him feel like he’d just swallowed the inside of a toasted marshmallow. “Maybe this one is it.”

The trio wandered through the eccentric foyer, marveling at the bright colors and intricate patterns stenciled onto any surface flat enough to showcase them, from the overstuffed armchairs in one corner to the bookcases on the far wall. Dream was reminded of birds of paradise, each item of furniture jostling to be the brightest and the flashiest. 

“He’s ready for you! Just come on back,” the receptionist called from somewhere beyond the doorway. 

“Twenty-second time’s the charm,” he muttered as they entered the shadowy domain of Skeppy the self-proclaimed sorcerer. 

His lair was lit only by candlelight, and the walls and ceiling of the small room were draped elegantly with miles of gauzy light blue cloth threaded with silver filigree, giving the impression of a much smaller space than was actually there. He was sitting cross legged on a low wooden stool in the center of a circle of six ornate armchairs, eyes shut tight and hands resting on his knees. 

Their first impression was of an exotic tropical frog, with thin bony arms and large gangly bare feet. He wore ivory colored robes patterned with royal blue embroidery, a ludicrously large puke orange turban, and enough necklaces and pendants to choke an elephant. His fingers were almost completely covered with a mismatched assortment of gaudy rings studded with cyan crystals that matched the hung fabric surrounding him. Long strings of the same gems were dangling from his arms and legs, catching and reflecting the flickering light much like the hummingbird in the lobby had. 

It was by far the most ridiculous get-up they’d seen on a supposed psychic thus far. Whether this added to his credibility or not, Dream was unsure. They hesitantly took their seats in the ring of chairs, afraid to disturb the silence that hung over the room. There was no sign of the friendly receptionist from earlier. 

“Two of you are in love,” the psychic boomed. They jumped, startled at the almost yelled pronouncement. “And one of you has a debilitating adoration for a small animal living at home.” The group was silent, unsure what he wanted them to say. He was right, and he was specific. That was better than anything they’d gotten before. “Well?” he squawked, his eyes shooting open to stare piercingly at them. “How’d I do?”

“Uh, good? George and I are dating, and Sapnap’s got a dog at home.”

“Excellent. Now that I’ve calibrated to account for your auras, what is this pressing issue you wish to resolve?”

Dream had his short spiel refined and memorized after so many failed attempts. “Sapnap disturbed a forty-year-old demon and now it’s living inside his head, eating his memories, and possessing him.”

“Well, isn’t that a conundrum.” He placed his hands on his hips and faced the subject of the statement, frowning so hard his eyebrows disappeared into the frown lines on his forehead. Humming tunelessly, he went slightly cross-eyed and flared his nostrils, massaging his own forehead. After at least two minutes of this perplexing performance, he gasped loudly, eyes snapping back into focus. “Your aura is badly disturbed. Worst tangles I’ve seen in a very long time. If you give me a half-hour of intense meditation and some incense I can straighten it out for you.” 

Sapnap was skeptical, to say the least. This sounded a lot like what most of the other psychics had told him. They all had their own word for it: aura, karma, essence, spirit, whatever; none of them actually did anything about the literal demon living inside him. Correct guesses about pets or not, he didn’t want to waste a half-hour on rubbish promises.

“I think we can go,” he said, standing up and moving towards the door. He wasn’t about to sit through another useless and bad-smelling “session” if he could help it. As he reached for the doorknob, however, his vision started darkening. _Not now,_ he desperately thought. He hurriedly yelled out a warning as shadows started encroaching on his mind. “It’s happening again!”

Dream launched himself out of the armchair and caught him just as his knees buckled and he blacked out. Skeppy was stunned into silence as George carefully checked one eye. 

“Hazel, we’re good,” his boyfriend reported. 

He sighed in relief, but as they carried him towards one of the chairs, his friend’s body stiffened in his arms. _Oh crap._

The demon cackled and gave him a swift uppercut, snapping his head back. Dream clutched his jaw and stumbled backwards, pain throbbing through his head and stars dancing in front of his eyes. 

“How d’ya like that, huh?” Lacuna crowed triumphantly, vaulting to its feet. “It doesn’t feel nice to get punched.” It charged towards him like a battering ram, but George crashed into it from the side, knocking it headfirst into the wall with a blood-curdling yell, where it was ensnared by the curtains. 

He cast around for anything they could use to knock the creature out, but the only thing small enough to swing but large enough to hurt was the stool currently holding one terrified and frazzled medium. He grabbed a candle instead, hoping the flame would at least keep the thing away from him but pleading silently he wouldn’t have to burn his friend in the process. He saw George do the same as the creature ripped itself out of the draperies. 

It smiled sadistically, bouncing on the balls of its feet. “Oh, candles. That’s funny. Ya know I could just blow ‘em out, right?” He puffed a bit of red smoke in their direction, and the small flames flickered slightly in the draft. “Anyways, I just wanted a little payback, there’s no need for senseless violence. I’ll be going now, though I do wish ya luck on your search. I know how successful it’s been so far.” He giggled evilly, then turned to the plainly petrified psychic, who seemed to have turned to stone and fused to his stool. “Perhaps you should rethink your career. Congratulations on your very first genuine supernatural experience!” 

He swept them a dramatic bow and collapsed with a shrill wail, mouth billowing crimson smoke. They waved the haze aside and rushed to Sapnap’s side, carefully lifting him into one of the armchairs. Dream sat heavily down in the one next to him, rubbing his jaw and still holding his extinguished candle, now with noticeable dents in the wax from how tightly he was gripping it. 

Skeppy was gasping like a fish with a punctured lung, eyes wide as golf balls and necklaces jangling as he trembled. He pointed one shaking finger at the unconscious man, a large crystal ring clattering to the floor.

“I want him out!” he yelled, voice cracking massively mid-shout. “There are bad things at work here, begone, begone!” Sapnap stirred slightly, and he shrieked in a mixture of terror and indignation. “Bad! BadBoyHalo, get in here, I want them ouuuut!” 

Sapnap sat up, blinking sleepily and looking around in confusion. Dream wrapped him in a quick hug as the receptionist burst into the room, panting lightly. He drew in a sharp breath as he caught sight of them, hand still frozen on the doorknob.

“Oh my goodness. Come, quickly, or he’ll become hysterical and I’ll have to cancel the rest of today’s appointments.” They did not protest, and he ushered them quickly back into the foyer, Sapnap with an arm around George for support. “Look, whatever happened in there is none of my business, but you’ve got him in a proper tizzy.” They offered sheepish apologies, which he waved off. “Happens on a regular basis. This one was worse than most, though.” He looked them up and down with a scathing eye. “Please wait here for one moment, I have something I need to give you.”

He disappeared into the back again, and they helped a groggy Sapnap into the nearest chair. 

“What could he possibly be getting us?” he questioned them. 

“No clue,” George replied. He gave a dry chuckle. “Maybe a crucifix and a jar of holy water.”

“More likely a dream catcher, with the look of this place,” Dream said, wincing as he moved his jaw. 

“You okay, buddy?”

“I’m fine.”

“Lies are not becoming,” Bad interjected. In one hand he held a small golden card, and in his other was a bag of frozen peas, which he handed to Dream.

“For your jaw.”

“How did you-”

“I know a little more than I let on. A direct hit to the chin is no picnic.”

“ _I punched you in the face?_ ”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Take the peas anyways.” 

He reluctantly pressed the frozen bag to his chin as Sapnap shot him a grief-stricken glance. 

Bad turned to George and placed the little golden card into his hand. “Look, I don’t refer many people, but your problem appears to be more serious than most. Go to this address and ask for Wilbur. He’s my old classmate. He’ll be able to help you. Despite what the world believes, there are still a few of us left.”

“Thank you so much,” he said. “We’re willing to try anything at this point. Wait, did you say _us_? Could you help?”

“No. This problem is way out of my depth. My skill set is rather simple; I read relationships and physical afflictions, and I project moods. But not much else.”

“Wait, is that how Skeppy knew we were dating?”

“And knew about my dog?”

“I sensed your relationship, yes. You two were practically glowing when you came in. The dog, however, was a simple matter of observation. Your shirt collects hair.”

“Oh.” Sapnap looked down at his shirt, and sure enough it was scattered with wiry fur from Mars and Patches. 

“ _Bad!_ ” Skeppy howled from the back, clearly still traumatized by Lacuna’s appearance.

“You need to leave now,” Bad hurriedly told them, glancing back over his shoulder. “He’ll be livid if he hears I ‘tainted the aura’ of his shop by helping you all. Don’t worry about paying, he’ll think it’s cursed and won’t take it.”

As he practically pushed them onto the street, they earnestly repeated their thanks and apologies. He nodded in acknowledgement, muttered “you’re welcome,” and slammed the door, the wind chime clanging behind him. 

“Well, that was kind of a success,” George remarked. “At least we have a slightly better lead now.” Dream grunted his agreement, unwilling to talk through the makeshift ice pack. Sapnap paled slightly and shifted his feet at the reminder of the injury. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled guiltily. 

“S’not your fault.”

“So should we go find this Wilbur guy?” George proposed.

“I think it’s a better option than-” Sapnap glanced at the next place on their list, “Phil Miner’s Phantasical Magiks.”

“And Bad said one of his abilities was projecting moods. Remember that happy feeling we all got when we came in? I think he was telling the truth,” he added. “Plus, what has he got to gain by leading us on?”

Dream voiced his support with another grunt. This referral could be their best chance for an actual solution, and they were running out of options. They piled back into the car and plugged in the address Bad had given them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I finally wrote a fic with Skeppy in it where he lived AND had dialogue! That's what, one for five?
> 
> I want to change my upload schedule to Fridays, so check back in a week for the next chapter. Two left, and they're longer ones. Guess who shows up next week? (wink wink totally not obvious but hopefully still a fun surprise)
> 
> mmmmmmmm, tasty comments pretty please,,,,, and thank you


	6. Cracked and Grounded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A certain character in this chapter has his personality shifted the _tiniest_ bit to the left for the purposes of his role. Can I have a warm welcome for our favorite dirty crime boy, now with extra chaos! ;)

The address on the gilded card was, unfortunately, over an hour away and appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. They were lucky George’s phone even recognized its existence. Much to their surprise, it belonged to an old mechanic’s garage, miles away from anything resembling civilization or a potential customer. _At least it wasn’t a cave or the home base of some psycho cult,_ George thought. 

The shop itself had only enough room for a single car, but the rest of the building looked quite a bit larger. It was spotlessly cleaned and the concrete floors were freshly washed, despite its run-down appearance. They cautiously peeked into the immaculate space, currently empty of vehicles, but it appeared deserted and there weren’t any lights on. 

“Are we sure this is the right place?” he wondered. 

“It is according to the GPS, at least,” his boyfriend confirmed. “I don’t see anyone, though.”

“Why, hello there!” a friendly voice said from behind them. They spun around in surprise to see a scruffy young man in an oversized mustard yellow sweater and worn-out sandals standing on the sand-covered driveway, frazzled-looking brown hair threatening to escape a weathered Yankees baseball cap. “What brings you out here to my garage? _No, mine._ Shut up.” He rolled his eyes. 

They gazed at him with curiosity and a bit of concern. 

“We’re looking for Wilbur,” Sapnap explained. 

“Well, you’re talking to him. _No, you’re not._ Yes, they are. Will you be quiet! _No._ Yes! You’re scaring them.” He swatted the side of his own head, like smacking an invisible fly. “ _Argh, fine. No need to get pushy._ ” He heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Sorry about that, folks. What can I do for you?”

Alarm bells were going off all over the place. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m fine. _No voices here_. All good. I just have a friend. Harmless, I promise.”

Dream eyed Wilbur apprehensively, and he gave him a grin big enough to belong to a cartoon character. Which was not nearly as reassuring as it was in cartoons. He shook off some of his nerves, pushing aside the persistent cycle of “voices means crazy means you _leave_ ” and pressed forward. 

“We were sent here by a man named BadBoyHalo who said you could help us.”

George presented Wilbur with the small golden card, which he examined with interest. He bent down and scooped a hand of sand off the driveway as he read, standing back up and stuffing it into his mouth without a second thought. They stared incredulously as he vigorously chewed the gritty sediment, seemingly unaware that anything he had just done was in any way unusual. The alarm bells escalated into sirens.

“Oh, Bad,” he said around a mouthful of crushed rock. “I haven’t heard from him in ages. _Me neither._ He still working for that crazy badger?” They nodded, watching him swallow the last of the sand in disbelief. “ _Waste of talent if you ask me._ I didn’t. He seems to like it fine, and Skeppy’s sane enough outside of work. Now, why don’t you come inside and we’ll sort this out together?”

He slipped into the garage, whistling cheerily and not bothering to wait for their answer. The trio shared worried looks, a lot of extremely valid concerns running through their heads. 

“Well… Bad sent us here, so he must trust him, right?” George said.

“He just ate sand like it was sugar and he talks to voices in his head,” Dream insisted. “That _talk back_ to him. We don’t even know if we can trust Bad. I’m not super sure I want to just waltz into his hideout.”

“We’re out of options,” Sapnap pointed out, determination in his eyes. “This is the best clue we’ve had in two days, and at this point, I’ve got nothing to lose. I’m going in, voices or no voices.” He disappeared without another word. The couple hesitantly followed him, not about to leave him alone with a potential lunatic. 

Wilbur stood in the exact center of the garage, hands clasped behind his back and rocking back and forth on the tips of his toes. 

“Excellent. I figured you’d follow. _You must be pretty desperate to ask for his help._ I said be quiet, they already think I’m nuts.” He spun on his heels and twirled to a small, faded lavender door in the back, throwing it wide and revealing a dim and narrow hallway. “After you.” 

Sapnap strode forward with no indecision, but Dream caught his hand. 

“Are we really trusting this guy?” he said softly.

“Yes. I want my life back. What’s the likelyhood any of the places left on our list can actually help us? This guy may have a screw or two loose, but the man who sent us here certainly didn’t seem to and he’s the best chance we’ve got.”

“Okay, then. I trust your judgement.” He shored up his confidence, and George took his hand comfortingly. “Let’s do this.”

“I didn’t hear any of that,” Wilbur said, twiddling his thumbs and waiting impatiently. “ _Yes, you did, he called you a blithering idiot._ Shut up, I’m not crazy.”

As the four of them walked down the dingy corridor, it got brighter and brighter until it gave way to a cozy and inviting little den, complete with a fruit bowl on the coffee table, a green chevron rug, and a pair of plush beige couches. The only slightly unusual thing about the whole place were the glass vases filled with fine white sand scattered in copious amounts over various surfaces. Many were half full, and they had a fair idea of where the rest of their contents had gone. 

“Please, sit down. Now, first off, I am a medium. I figured you must already know this, hence why you are here. _Why else would they have driven out to the middle of this godforsaken desert?_ Shush. I will not bamboozle you or feed you lies like all the rest of those swindlers. I will, however, need absolute honesty if we are to reach a resolution to whatever problem is so dreadful that my dear, down-to-earth classmate would send you to me.”

As he talked, he rummaged around in a chest of drawers in the back of the room, scooping up and swallowing a handful of sand from a cup as he searched. “Nothing quite like sand for charging the third eye,” he explained, uncomfortable crunching accompanying every syllable. “I had to pick a focus object when I was little, and sand was the clear choice. _Yeah, everyone wants to spend their whole lives eating crushed rocks._ I don’t understand people’s aversion to it. Marvelous stuff. A-ha!”

He triumphantly held up a pair of round glasses with extraordinarily thick lenses. “Haven’t had to use these in forever. _You used them last month to read me that novel._ Ah, you’re right, I’d forgotten.” He perched himself on the arm of the couch next to George, the lenses distorting his eyes so that they appeared much larger than normal. He studied each of them intently. “Now, you lot probably think I’m off my rocker. _They’d be right._ No they wouldn’t. I swear to you I’m not mad, if you’d kindly ignore the voice of my late roommate Schlatt. He lingers around here, and has no respect for my personal boundaries. _Oh, shut up, you summoned me back yourself._ ”

“Your roommate?” George said in disbelief.

“Oh, yes. Stroke, a couple years ago. Terribly sad. Why he didn’t tell me he had a heart condition until the day he died, I’ll never understand. _You would’ve known about it, if you ever listened to me_. All I ever do is listen to you. So, let me try and figure out why you’re here. I’d like to retrieve the story myself, if you don’t mind. I hate prejudice. Can I have permission to look at your minds? I promise I’ll stay away from anything you don’t want me seeing; it’s very obvious in the brain where I’m not welcome.”

“It won’t hypnotize us or anything?” Sapnap asked.

“Heavens, no. I detest such paltry party tricks. I’ll simply look at your memories from the past few days and piece together an accurate reconstruction of events. _Quick and simple, he could do it in his sleep._ No adverse effects at all.” 

They hesitantly agreed. 

“Excellent. I read by touch, not sight like Bad, so I will need your palm. This gentlemen first, if you please.”

He took George’s hand and slowly started tracing the complex creases in his palm. “Please close your eyes for me.” 

Dream watched nervously as the medium’s pupils shrunk down to tiny dots, leaving only huge brown irises that were very disturbing to look at. Only a few seconds had passed before his pupils rapidly grew to normal size and George opened his eyes. 

“That was… weird. Did it work?”

“Yes, quite well. I must compliment you on your exceptionally unbiased perception of events. _Why can’t I ever see?_ Because you’re not welcome in other people's heads. Will you go next, Dream?”

“I never told you my n-”

“Yes, but you’ve certainly told George.”

Dream took a deep breath. “Oh. All right.” As he closed his eyes and Wilbur started rubbing gentle circles on his hand, he felt for a few moments like he was floating in a cloud of white nothing, curious breezes whistling around his face and hands. 

His head felt very… crowded, he supposed, like there was more stuffed into it then there ever should be. There was no other way to really describe it. It wasn’t uncomfortable, per se, but it certainly was weird. Then the feeling left and he found himself staring at a pair of massive coffee-colored eyes that strongly reminded him of an owl’s. The old man patted his shoulder with an expression filled with empathy. 

“Try not to be so hard on yourself. It’s not worth beating yourself up over something you have no control over. _What happened?_ Shush, I’ll tell you later. You did everything possible, and hope’s not gone yet.” 

Dream stared at him in astonishment, then at his feet. It was unsettling to have his innermost thoughts exposed to this strange man. 

“Now, to the source of our little problem.” he continued, turning to Sapnap, who shrunk back slightly. “With your permission, I’ll take a peek around in that noggin of yours and figure out just how serious of a threat we’re dealing with.”

He steeled himself. “Okay.” 

The medium took his wrist and started tracing lazy lines up and down his arm, and he closed his eyes nervously. He couldn’t feel the couch beneath him anymore, and it was very dark and cold. He shivered and hoped it would be over quickly, but at least five minutes passed and the ordeal showed no signs of ending. He started hearing muffled bangs and explosions, but everything sounded distant and muddled, like he was deep underwater. 

He tried to propel himself towards the source of the commotion, but it was so dark he had no idea if he was making progress or not. The sounds never got any closer. He flailed wildly, trying to find anything solid in the seemingly empty void. Yelling into the emptiness was useless; the sound never even reached his ears. It was like the vacuum of space, just more terrifying and less deadly. His brain was running in anxious claustrophobic circles that made him want to flee as far away as possible, but trying to run at the moment was about as helpful as an ice cube thrown into a bonfire to put it out. 

Some primal instinct kept him paddling like a drowning swimmer against the terror, and eventually his hand struck something scaly and pliable, about as big around as a bathroom pipe. He wrapped his arms around it, desperate for anything vaguely connected to the real world. As he clung tightly to the rough skin, it pulsed slightly in his grip before starting to curl around his waist like a boa constrictor and beginning to squeeze. He pulled it off in a panic, untangling the intrusive arm as fast as he could as it tried to ensnare him in its grasp. 

He kicked off of a particularly thick portion and went spinning off in a random direction, quickly losing any sense of up or down in the disorienting darkness. He forcefully careened into another tentacle, this one as thick as a large tree trunk. The collision knocked the wind out of him, and he gasped for breath as the massive limb shuddered and twitched to life. He pushed weakly away from it, but it scooped him up in a massive embrace that he could do nothing but pound his fists against. He screamed silently into nothing as he felt the thing wrap around his legs and constrict against his chest.

“Stop!” The massive word punched through the darkness, and the arm quivered violently before releasing him. He panted, shaking with relief as a soft hand reached out of nothing and grabbed onto the cuff of his jeans. It pulled him through the tear in the void, and he rushed back into consciousness. He caught sight of his friends hovering around him with worried expressions, then his eyes rolled back and he promptly fainted.

* * *

After everything they’d seen the demon do, watching Wilbur delve into Sapnap’s mind was very nerve-wracking for the other two. The medium’s pupils shrunk to the size of pencil dots, and after a minute or so they began to worry about what could possibly be taking so long. Sweat started beading on their friend’s brow and he started taking shallow, sipping breaths, but the medium kept taking long, rattling drafts of air at precise, fifteen second intervals. His brow furrowed, and his hold on the other man’s arm switched from brushing light rows up and down his forearm to a fierce two handed grip that left his knuckles white and his face pinched. 

After an excruciatingly long time, Wilbur’s pupils dilated to ridiculous proportions and he abruptly released Sapnap’s arm to grab onto his pant leg instead. He yanked, hard, and they ran over, just managing to catch the pair as they tumbled to the floor. 

The medium was back up on his feet in an instant, brushing off George’s concerned questions and kneeling down in front of Sapnap, who was still unconscious. He checked his eyes, which were mercifully still hazel. Then, with no warning whatsoever, the old man slapped him across the cheek. Dream cried out in protest, but now Sapnap’s eyes were open, albeit unfocused. They wandered around independent of each other, but for just a second they fixated on the three people clustered around him before rolling completely back into his head. He fell limp in Dream’s arms. 

“Oh, dear. That’s not good. Not good at all. _Yeah, no kidding, you old coot._ We have to move now. Get him onto the couch.” 

They hoisted their friend’s slack form onto the sofa. A small trickle of scarlet vapor escaped his lips. Wilbur studied him with a frown, daintily nibbling on pinches of sand from a pot on the coffee table, before pointing straight at Dream. “You. Slap him.”

“What?” Dream asked, shocked. 

“He knows you. It’ll be a bigger wake-up call than if I do it. Chop-chop.”

“I’m not going to hit my best friend.”

“You will if you want him to still be your best friend when he wakes up.”

Dream hesitantly shut his eyes, tried to imagine he was slapping Lacuna instead of Sapnap, and smacked him. He yelled in pain, and Dream nervously opened one eye to see him sitting up and rubbing his cheek. 

“What was that for?”

“You fainted again. Thank goodness that worked.”

“Why’d you have to slap me out of it, though?”

“Ask the kooky dirt boy.”

The man in question had sprinted to the back of the room and was now rooting through the jumble of files and knick-knacks, furiously cramming handfuls of sand into his mouth. He scooped up as many filled jars as he could hold and dumped them onto the coffee table, mumbling unintelligibly. The trio watched anxiously from the couch. After no less than two full containers had disappeared into his stomach, he burped loudly and looked over at the pair of them. 

“I may have accidentally angered the little monster he’s got living in there when I inserted myself into his head, and now it has sped up its takeover. _Nice going, you old fart._ Shut up, it was an accident. We have to get back in there fast. It’s going after his personality now, so if you want to remain any sort of version of yourself we have to get that thing out of you immediately.” 

“Why on earth would you go into his head if you knew this could happen?” Dream said angrily. “You said there were no adverse effects.”

“I severely underestimated what we were dealing with. I expected a low-level demon who would be cowed or at the very least wary of my presence in his psyche, but instead I got an arrogant, overpowered beast hell-bent on pushing me back out before I could get to your friend. _You’re cockier than Tommy at this point._ Shut up, my brother and his bad taste in music can shove it.” 

He jammed another spoonful of sand into his mouth and turned to him and George. “Now, I need to connect one of you to his brain to get rid of the creature. If I go in myself, it’ll recognize me in a heartbeat and kick me back out again. One of you has a much better chance of flying under the radar for at least a little while. The other needs to stay behind and act as an anchor to tie us to the real world. Who’s it going to be?”

“I’ll go,” Dream said immediately. 

“And I’ll be the anchor.” George added.

“Excellent. Follow me.”

“What do I need to do while they’re in my head?” Sapnap asked.

“For all our sakes, remain yourself. I might not be able to fish you out a second time.”

He walked back to the chest of drawers and pulled open the bottom drawer, which had previously remained untouched. A horrible grinding noise echoed through the room as the large dresser slid back into the wall, revealing another dingy passageway. He led them down the cramped corridor, whipping a flashlight out of who knows where as the hallway got darker. A rusted metal door waited at the end of the passage, which he wrenched open with a grating screech. They crowded into a small room furnished only with four plain wooden chairs and a single dim light bulb exposed on the ceiling. 

“Better concentration in here,” he offered. “I’ve had another psychic bless the area. _Why don’t you ever tell them that it was me?_ Fine, it was him. Please sit down, George in between the two of you.”

After they had seated themselves, he took the remaining chair and started delivering rapid-fire instructions. 

“Dream, once you’re in there, the only one that can help you is yourself or Sapnap, if he’s not incapacitated yet. Both of you will take the form of your own physical bodies. Your goal is to get in, eliminate whatever it is that is attacking him, and get back out. This should get rid of the demonic presence. You need to be as quick as you can. Extended time spent in someone else’s head risks personality transfer.”

“What will I be fighting and how on earth do I fight it?”

“There’s no telling what specifically it will be, only that it will be an obvious threat manufactured by Lacuna. As for weapons, you have whatever Sapnap’s imagination can provide you with subconsciously. _Tell him about moving._ Oh, yes. You can’t move like you do in the temporal world. You propel yourself through thought. Literally think yourself forward and you’ll go.”

“What do I do?” George asked.

“You are the anchor. You ground him to the real world. You are to hold onto him like his life depends on it, because his sanity does. Under no circumstances are you to let go of him while he is in the trance. You are the only thing keeping him attached to this world, since he has no psychic powers to pull himself out without a direct line to his body.”

“And my job is to not get possessed,” Sapnap concluded. 

“Precisely. It would be less than ideal if you were to be taken over while you are in the trance. _That’s a gross understatement._ However, you are also to help Dream fight Lacuna if you can. There is honestly no telling what you will encounter upon entering the connection, but you will likely already be partially trapped or injured.” 

“What happens if it does take control of me?”

“Then we pray to whatever deity you believe in. Or the universe in general if you prefer. I am powerless to prevent such an occurrence.” The trio paled slightly. “But we must proceed or face worse consequences. While I am connecting you two, I am quite literally a mental bridge. I will be, essentially, comatose. So will the two of you. _Only Wilbur can wake you up, so don’t be stupid and try to do it yourselves._ You, George, will be the only one conscious while the connection is active. I will create and break the connection myself, but that’s the only thing I can do. Is everyone clear?” They all nodded, with varying degrees of confidence. 

“As clear as we can be,” George said.

“Then let’s get started. Sapnap, Dream, make sure you won’t fall out of your chairs when you go under. George, grab onto his wrist. Remember we have to move fast. This thing is not going to be happy that we’re in there.”

Wilbur’s pupils enlarged and he stiffened in his chair, mouth clenched in a thin line. He robotically reached out a single finger, leaning over and tapping the two men’s foreheads. They fell slack in their chairs, and George was left alone. 

He clutched his boyfriend’s wrist firmly, trying to calm himself as his mind buzzed with all the ways things could go horribly awry. His anxiety grew exponentially with every passing minute. After the longest five minutes of his life, the sound of mumbling reached his ears, and he turned to see Sapnap murmuring softly, though he couldn’t make out what he was saying. He prayed that things weren’t going wrong. Sapnap’s mumbling got louder and more warped, then he screamed like he was being murdered and George almost released Dream’s wrist from terror. He fearfully studied Sapnap; he was twitching slightly and only the whites of his eyes were showing. As he watched, they started to swirl with tendrils of darkness.

“Oh, that’s great. Wonderful. Crap.” He was going to have to fend the demon off while also protecting the other two, and he may as well be handcuffed to one of them. There was nothing in the room he could use to defend himself, except perhaps the bulky wooden chairs. He wasn’t sure if he could lift them one-handed, but it was all he had. As the darkness continued to swirl in Sapnap’s eyes, he stood up from his seat and tried to lift the unwieldy thing. It wasn’t terribly hard to manage, but it was cumbersome and was not going to make a great weapon. 

_Well, this is quite the predicament,_ he mused. _Though I guess all I really need to do is find a way to either knock him out or pin him, not have an extended fight._ He studied the chair again. It had no crossbar between the legs, and it looked like it was about the breadth of Sapnap’s torso. Moving quickly, he grabbed his friend’s arm and lowered him to the floor, then situated the chair on top of him so that it (hopefully) pinned him to the floor. He knelt on top of the chair, holding Dream at arm’s length so that he was out of Sapnap’s reach and wouldn’t fall out of his seat. 

Just as he got situated, Sapnap’s eyes blackened completely and he shrieked, flailing wildly. The chair bucked a bit under him, and he remembered with dismay the ease with which the monster had thrown Dream across the kitchen before. However, the creature only seemed capable of rocking the chair slightly, and he hoped it was a sign they were winning the fight against it. 

The monster was trapped, but, unfortunately, it could still reach his ankles hanging off the edge of the chair. Its nails repeatedly raked viciously across his skin. He gasped in pain and clenched his teeth, the angry shaking of the chair keeping him just off balance enough that he couldn’t change his position. He silently pleaded with Dream to hurry as Lacuna’s garbled nonsense kicked up a notch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I decided all these characters weeks ago. I (kind of) PREDICTED GLATTBUR I’M SO EXCITED
> 
> Comments are much appreciated. No I'm not eating them what are you talking about.


	7. Behind His Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a couple days late, been pretty busy! Enjoy. :)

When Dream opened his eyes, he was surrounded by a whiteness so bright it was almost painful to look at. He tried to shield his eyes, but it made no difference since it was coming from everywhere at once. As his eyes adjusted to the brilliance, he began to see small bright blurs of colored light whizzing by him. They were a variety of bright, vibrant colors, but few in number. 

One flew straight towards him, and he tried to duck out of the way, but his limbs didn’t seem to be working properly and it blasted him straight in the face. A kaleidoscope of colors flooded his vision, and a memory of driving in the car together the day before was thrown to the front of his mind with such force it was almost painful. Only, it wasn’t his perspective. He was staring at himself from the backseat. _These must be the last of Sapnap’s memories,_ he decided. 

He tried moving his arms again, but he couldn’t get them to cooperate. _Oh, wait, I move by thought, right?_ He tried consciously telling his arm to move, and it obediently lifted and smacked him hard in the nose. He internally flinched, but it didn’t hurt at all. This place was definitely not operating by normal rules. _Okay,_ he thought, _I need to find Sapnap. How do I get out of here?_ He told his head to look around the space, but he didn’t see a door or anything except the endless whiteness. _Maybe if I think of a way out?_

No sooner had the idea entered his head then a dilapidated wooden door appeared out of nowhere in front of him. He tugged it open and thought himself through, entering what looked like a grimy sewer pipe. He hung in the air in the center of it; gravity apparently followed its own made-up rules in the brain. At least there were actual walls now. 

He navigated carefully down the pipe, heading for a faint light around a corner. As he rounded the turn, getting more confident in controlling his own appendages, he stopped dead in shock. Before him was a huge black void, and Sapnap floated in the middle of the expanse, ensnared by a massive tangle of crimson tentacles stretching up from an unknown point far below them. He was pulling the things off of himself as fast as he could, but it was clear he was fighting a losing battle as more of them reached up menacingly out of the nothingness. He caught sight of Dream and hope sparked in his eyes.

“Help me!” he yelled at near hysterical levels.

Dream shot over and started frantically yanking the scaly monstrosities off of his friend, but they started winding themselves around Sapnap again as soon as they were removed, and their numbers were growing. 

“Didn’t Wilbur say you’d have weapons?” his friend exclaimed.

“I don’t have any!”

“Well then think one up!”

He squeezed his eyes shut and thought desperately for anything to help him, a sword, a flamethrower, _anything._

“You’re glowing!”

He opened his eyes and saw that he was, indeed, suffused with a soft white light. As he gazed wonderingly at his hands, the glow around them intensified. He grabbed one of the tentacles, and it writhed and smoked in his grasp, withering away to ash. 

_Oh, I can work with this._ He set to work scorching as many as he could, and the pair started gaining ground. Sapnap’s whole torso was free now, and Dream was now almost completely accustomed to controlling his own limbs like a video-game avatar. 

Just as it looked like they were actually going to win, the arms re-doubled their efforts, growing thicker and stronger and sprouting up in droves. They started fighting him as well as going after their prey, and his illuminated hands were not nearly as effective against the larger tentacles, thick as tree trunks and hurtling towards him at immense speeds. 

A particularly vicious one sent him wheeling away from his friend and slammed him into the edge of the entrance pipe, and the others used the brief respite to swarm Sapnap, swiftly smothering his scream of terror as Dream struggled to fend off the one pinning him to the pipe. His hands only seared its tough armored surface, and he fought fiercely to free himself as his friend disappeared from view.

“No!” he screamed as Sapnap vanished completely beneath the writhing mass. His body burned white-hot with his anger, and the arm trapping him disintegrated in the fiery blast. He threw himself at the tight-knit knot of arms, but for every one he burned two more took his place. 

_This is hopeless,_ he thought, as crimson burned to black with every touch but he never got closer to his friend. _I can’t do it. Now it’s really my fault. They just keep coming… wait._ What if he could get to the source? They were sprouting from somewhere. He dove downwards, dragging his hand down the length of whatever tentacle he could reach and incinerating everything he touched. He pushed himself faster and faster, but they seemed to extend downward for forever. There had to be a source. This couldn’t be the end. They were so close. He wasn’t going to lose his friend to this demon. 

Suddenly, he saw ground rushing up to meet him, and he barely managed to avoid slamming face-first into it, skidding to a stop barely two feet above it. The corrupted ground was a dark maroon, covered with blemishes and the bases of the grotesque crimson tentacles, creating the illusion of a dense forest of twisted trees. It pulsed gently, undulating like ocean waves. 

Dream slammed his incandescent hands into it with everything he had, but all he left were a pair of black burn marks that faded after a few seconds. He wailed against the unyielding surface, but nothing he did made any sort of indent. He was so unbelievably angry, he knew that he was strong enough, he had to be strong enough. If he destroyed this, he would win his friend’s life back, so he hurled himself into it with a ferocity he didn’t know he had. 

A hideous laugh resonated through the darkness, a splinter of fear pricked his heart. A horribly distorted mockery of Sapnap’s voice carried through the air.

“It’s over. You failed your best friend,” it taunted. He faltered, the splinter piercing a little deeper. “He’s _mine_ now. All that optimism and hope, it was _delicious_. Maybe ya could have saved him if you got there sooner. Oh, what could have been if _you_ were _better_. But you were _too late._ ”

Dream weaky rammed his shoulder into the ground, tears blurring his vision and his glow flickering into nothing. 

“You will _never_ be strong enough.”

He crumpled into a heap, sobbing bitterly. It was right, and he hated the demon all the more for it. It was his fault, his friend was gone, suffocated under the weight and power of the corruption towering above him. How could he have thought he could win. He couldn’t even faze Lacuna when it was in a human body, and now he was fighting it in its own territory. 

He closed his eyes and clutched his knees to his chest, overwhelmed with guilt and despair. He thought of his best times with Sapnap. He recalled their first meeting in that park, how he’d thought that he’d finally found a companion, and love for his best friend burned in his heart. He couldn’t lose that. He wouldn’t. He was not going to go down like this. Maybe he deserved this. But Sapnap didn’t. 

A beautiful warmth blossomed in his chest and slowly flowed through him, filling him with a feeling of strength and power. His fear burned away in the face of his determination. He felt charged, like lightning, and he opened his eyes to see every vein in his body glowing an intense blue. 

Hope rekindled within him, and he concentrated on his hands, trying to grow the light. An electrifying pulse ran through him, and a radiant cyan dagger coalesced in his grip. Without a second thought, he plunged the blade deep into the corruption beneath him. A drawn-out shriek of fury and pain buffeted his eardrums, and he dragged the knife along the ground, leaving a deep gash in the leathery surface. 

He hacked at it with all of his strength, driving the dagger deeper and deeper with every cut and swiftly dispatching any tentacles that tried to slow his progress. This fight was not over yet. He savagely slashed his way through, and the thick skin gave way to a huge cavern, swarming with thousands and thousands of the multi-colored memory breezes he’d seen before. He clambered inside and stared around himself in awe.

“They’re still here,” he breathed, as a memory of Mars tickled his ear and a birthday party wrapped around his ankle. The memories were all here. He was staring at Sapnap, at every defining experience that made his wonderful best friend into himself. A small lilac breeze whispered against his cheek, and he was pitched into the memory. 

It was the three of them, sitting on the kitchen tile. His own voice floated through his mind. “An accident means that it’s no one’s fault.” No one’s fault. But this was his fault. “Not your fault,” the memory murmured. He felt the relief the memory carried, the love emanating from everyone, the forgiveness given and accepted without words even if there was no need to be forgiven. Not your fault. 

He didn’t think he could believe his own words. Not his fault. Not his fault? Tears ran freely down his face as the lavender cloud danced around him as he fought a different battle against the demon, one to destroy its words. Not his fault. Maybe the mistake wasn’t his. Maybe George was right. He needed to let go of the blame. He was going to rescue Sapnap. Not to earn forgiveness or repay wrongdoings. To save his best friend. His best friend that he loved and who loved him right back. 

He attacked the corruption with renewed vigor, enlarging the hole from the inside out so the memories could escape, but they were blocked by the thick red tentacles. He slashed the scaly arms away and pushed his way back through the opening, letting the memories speed upwards towards Sapnap, lighting up the darkness like fireworks. Beautiful, hopeful fireworks. 

As more and more darted past him to freedom, the crimson tentacles fought harder and more desperately to stop him. The ground under him shrivelled and blackened with every one he cut down. The never-ending howl of the demon tore throbbingly through him in near-paralyzing pulses, but he would never give up. He wouldn’t let himself. He pushed doggedly on, stabbing and slicing until every last memory had escaped and the pulsing skin of the corruption was nothing more than an ashy desert. He dropped to his knees, breathing heavily, as the agonizing scream petered out at last. The gleaming dagger faded to nothing in his grasp as he staggered back to his feet. He felt lighter. He wasn’t too late. 

Rising up in pursuit of the freed memories, he found them flocking in droves around the blackened ball of corruption that held their owner. He carefully cleared the crumbling cocoon away with his blue-veined hands, uncovering an unconscious Sapnap. He tugged him out of the decaying shell, the memories happily whistling around his ears as he carefully carried his friend back down the pipe to the white expanse where the glittering flurries had first greeted him. As he closed the door behind the last of the memories, the portal vanished without a trace. 

He worriedly took hold of Sapnap’s shoulders, watching his friend’s face for any sign of life. In this place, neither of them had a pulse he could check. A tear ran down his cheek as minutes ticked by and Sapnap showed no signs of waking up, and he pulled him into a tight hug. He couldn’t have been too late. He wasn’t gone. He couldn’t be. Not after everything they’d been through together. Not when they’d finally won. 

The final remnants of the blue fire flowing through his veins pulsed and pooled into his fingers, and sparks danced down his arms. The energy flowed out of him and into his friend’s back, hissing and crackling, then vanished completely. He waited with bated breath. Just as he was about to give up hope again, Sapnap drew in a shuddering breath.

“Oh, thank goodness,” he whispered. 

“Hey, buddy,” he mumbled. “Did we win?”

More tears fell, this time from relief. “Yes. We did. It’s gone.”

“I can remember now. Holy crap, I can remember everything. This is amazing. Thank you, Dream. Thank you for my everything.”

Dream could do nothing but cry happily into him as their vision blurred to white.

* * *

The first thing he saw when he jolted back into himself was his boyfriend’s tear-streaked face. He brushed a droplet from George’s cheek, and his lips split in a joyful smile. He tackled Dream in a hug, nearly knocking both of them to the floor. Dream kissed his hair and they held each other, laughing and crying all at once. 

“You’re safe, oh thank goodness, you’re safe.”

“Yes. We both are. We defeated Lacuna. Is Sapnap awake yet?”

George nervously looked behind himself, and he saw Sapnap pinned beneath one of the heavy wooden chairs, still out cold. 

“What happened?”

“It possessed him while you were under.”

“What! Are you okay?”

“It’s really not that bad-”

“What did it do?”

He sat down on the chair that didn’t have a person under it and pulled up his pant legs, exposing at least two dozen red scratch marks, some of them oozing blood. 

“It could still reach my legs while it was pinned. It did a number on my ankles before I could tuck them under me. They really don’t hurt that much, I promise.”

“Oh, George, I’m so sorr-”

“Don’t be,” he interrupted. He saw the guilt starting to gather in Dream’s face, but then it cleared.

“Okay,” he said. “Are you really all right?” 

He kissed him as an answer. “Yes. I am. Now help me get the other two up.”

They lifted Sapnap back into his chair, and checked on Wilbur, who somehow hadn’t budged an inch during the entire ordeal. Just as they were debating whether or not slapping them again was a good idea, the two men jerked back to life. The pair crushed Sapnap in a hug as the medium brushed himself off and performed mental inventory. 

“Sorry for the delay, you two, I needed to straighten out the last of the knots in his subconscious. _Stop screwing around in your own head and get that guy some bandages._ Oh, George, my goodness, I apologize. Please wait here.”

Sapnap extracted himself from the embrace and looked worriedly at him. “Are you okay?”

“Lacuna scratched my ankles up a bit. I’m fine.”

“I’m s-” Sapnap began. George shot him a warning glance and he quailed. “I’m sorry it did that to you.”

“Better.” He grinned. “I want the full story of whatever happened later, but right now I’m so glad you’re back that it would just fly over my head. You are back, right, Sapnap?”

“Yes,” he said gladly. “It’s all back.”

They heard the door creak open and turned to see Wilbur, bits of sand trickling out of his left hand and a pair of rolled bandages in his right. “Come back out to the workspace and you can wash those claw marks out,” he instructed. The trio untangled themselves and followed the medium all the way back out to the garage, where there was a large metal sink. 

As George washed and bandaged his ankles, Wilbur interrogated the other two what happened during the connection. Sapnap related what he’d seen, but he had been unconscious for most of it and had to pass most of the questions on to Dream. 

His boyfriend curled in on himself, giving vague descriptions and one-word answers. He found himself avoiding the more painful parts of what happened, not wanting to relive the memories and unwilling to reveal his own thoughts. George listened worriedly from the side, finishing wrapping the bandage around his leg. It occurred to him that he had been so glad he was safe that he hadn’t even considered what he might have just gone through. 

“You don’t have to go into it if it’s too much right now,” he interrupted, earning an annoyed look from the medium. “Look, it may be scientifically interesting to you, but we have had a horrible past couple days and he’s clearly uncomfortable.” 

Dream shot him a grateful glance. “And I’m sleep-deprived,” he volunteered half-heartedly. 

“Why can’t you just go into our heads and see the memories like you did before?” Sapnap proposed.

The psychic blinked slowly, then smacked himself on the forehead in exasperation. “Ah, I’m such a dunce. You are quite right. I have to do a quick mental check up on you all anyways, make sure none of Sapnap went back attached to Dream. If that’s okay with you all?” 

They nodded in relief. George pulled his sneakers back on, and they walked back through the blue door to the den to finish this whole thing.

  


* * *

  


Epilogue: Of Citrus and the Future

The first thing they did when they got back to Sapnap’s house was to take an axe to the orange sapling that had caused the problem in the first place. The branches that were previously thrashing wildly were now hanging limp, and the ground around the tree was littered with crinkly brown leaves. 

There was no sign of the fruit it had borne before. It looked dead already, and the whole trunk was very brittle and breakable. They probably could have taken it down with their bare hands if they wanted to. After burning the blackened wood, they carefully covered the ground where it used to grow with stones, marking the spot so they wouldn’t accidentally dig there again. Who knew what else was lurking down there.

George grinned impishly as he dropped the last rock in place. “Orange you glad we cut this down?”

“Oh my god. My garden had a demon buried in it and you’re making tree puns again.”

“Why don’t you just move?” Dream asked him, swiftly hiding his grin.

“Cause I just moved here a few months ago and I don’t know if my bank account could take it. Plus, this way no one else will move in and be cursed with the desire to plant something here.”

“Suit yourself. My door’s always open if you decide you want out.”

He laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dream bumped his shoulder and smirked slyly. “Your desire to stay here has me _stumped._ ” 

Sapnap buried his face in his hands to hide the smile fighting to surface. “This humor is the pits.”

“Oranges have seeds, not pits.”

“Shut up, I know.” 

“Are you going to be good staying here tonight?” George asked. “You really could spend the night at one of our places if you want.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Hey, Dream?”

“Mm?”

“I remembered that before all this, we were supposed to work on our GTO tomorrow. Will I see you then?”

Dream beamed, putting all of the stress from the past few days behind him at last. “See you then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, this story was the first bigger one that I finished, and I'm still really proud of it!
> 
> Please, leave comments below, even if it's been forever since this was posted. They seriously make my day, even if it's just a keysmash :)))))


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